SCI 133 General Biology

Content

Starting off with lifeless material primordial Earth revealed nothing yet of the surprising complexity part of its matter was going to reveal later on. Through millions of years of aimless tinkering by physical and chemical processes, the first protobionts occurred, making way for the first cell. From then on evolutionary processes played their parts and Earth ended up with life.

In this course we will travel through the evolution of biotic diversity. We start with a thorough overview of the principles of evolution. How do populations evolve? What are the mechanisms behind the origin of new species? We will discuss the origins of life and then progress to an overview of nowadays worldwide biodiversity and its related processes. The bacteria are treated firstly, followed by the protists, our direct predecessors. After introducing multicellularity the fungi, plants and animals are treated. From our track, we will leap sideways every now and then to adress issues other than, but related to, biodiversity, such as medicine, philosophy, psychology and economics. Eventually, this wealth in organisms is put in a multidimensional setting, which we call ecology. There, issues such as element cycles and communities are treated, therewith shortly introducing principles on co-operation and treachery, molest and sex, dependence and independence, death and life. We will conclude with a short introduction in conservation biology.

Instructor

Dr. Inez Flameling

Track

Biology Track

Period

Fall / 2012

Course Material

• Campbell and Reece 2005. Biology 8th international edition. ISBN 0-321-26984-5

Additional Prerequisites

High school chemistry and biology, as well as SCI 131 will be advantageous

Required for

This course is required in order to take the following courses:

• SCI 233 Ecology and Evolution
• SCI 333 Advanced Ecology
• SCI 334 Marine Biology