1. There are many challenges that organisms must meet to survive. Describe two c
ID: 10683 • Letter: 1
Question
1. There are many challenges that organisms must meet to survive. Describe two challenges and explain how plants and animals are able to meet these challenges. Be specific about structures (anatomy) involved and molecules (physiology) involved.2. Describe two evolutionary adaptations of vertebrates and how they correlate with function.
3. Give four specific examples of regulation of processes, two in the Plant Kingdom and two in the Animal Kingdom and then describe each of them. Be as specific as possible.
4. Compare and contrast the major anatomical and physiological aspects of circulation in a plant, insect, and human.
5. Describe two reasons why a giant insect is not possible.
6. Describe a specific signal transduction pathway in the plant kingdom and one example in the animal kingdom.
7. Looking at the digestion system, reproductive system, circulatory system, and gas exchange systems of humans give an example for each these systems of how form and function are correlated.
8. Describe two important ways that the plant kingdom and animal kingdom are dependent on each other.
9. Compare and contrast how the plant and animal kingdom defend themselves.
10. The flow and exchange of energy between an organism and its surroundings involves transformation of one form of energy to another. Describe this flow of energy from producers to consumers in a step by step fashion. Be specific about key molecules for both producers and consumers. Where does energy originate? What is oxygen’s role in this flow?
Explanation / Answer
Oooookay, let's tackle these... 1. What kind of challenges do you think organisms need to survive? Think about it - adaptations to changes in the weather (so as to not freeze/sweat to death), ways to metabolize energy, and to find food. Most green (photosynthetic) plants are photoautotrophs - they evolved long ago to include photosynthetic platids (chloroplasts) which allow them to harvest light energy in order to fix carbon into a useful source of energy, like glucose. Most animals, however, are autotrophs. They are mobile, unlike plants. They have their own ways of finding food. However, both plants and animals use a common molecule (mostly) for cellular energy. What do you think this is? 2. Evolutionary adaptations...only 2?? I can think of millions. I'm sure you can, too. Darwin quoted that evolution is how form meets function. So think about it. Think about a polar bear's camouflage. Think about how birds evolved from reptiles. There are so many examples of evolutionary form contributing to function. 3. I must admit, I have no idea what your professor/teacher means by "regulation of processes". I've never heard that term. Sorry! 4. I hope you've learned about the different circulatory systems of animals, insects, and plants. For one, plants don't have a circulatory system, but they do have "tube"-like structures called xylem and phloem. Xylem use adhesion, cohesion, and pressure from transpiration to move water from the roots into the leaves and stems. The phloem uses positive and negative pressure to move a sugary sap from source tissues to sink tissues (the sap can move in either direction). Insects have what is called an open circulatory system. This means that their circulatory system is open to the atmosphere, and so therefore blood, or, in their case, hemolymph, pressure, is regulated by the atmosphere. All the tissues in an insects body are bathed in this hemolymph, and so therefore they do not require a very sophisticated method of transporting hemolymph. Humans have a double, closed circulatory system. We take unoxygenated blood from the systemic circuit, pump it into the pulmonary circuit, where it becomes oygenated, it flows back into the heart, and the heart pumps all the oxygen-rich blood to the rest of the systemic circuit. 5. Think about how I just mentioned about the insect circulatory system; their hemolymph pressure is regulated by atmospheric pressure, and this is possible because they are so small; their heart is mainly used to maintain flow of the hemolymph, not really pressure; so such a large insect would require a more mammal-like heart to counteract the effects of gravity. Think of another reason why a large insect isn't possible. 6. Signal transduction......there is a very simple one in the human body system, involving acetylcholine released from a motor neuron, which causes stimulates an action potential in muscle cells, causing them to release calcium, and this is a pathway which leads to muscle contraction. A transduction pathway example in plants would be something like the plant hormone auxin stimulating the acidification of the cell wall in the stems, causing turgor pressure to decrease, water flows into the cell, and the cell elongates (this is how plant "growth" occurs). 7. Think about it: Digestive system. Long ago, before us humans (or, at least, Americans) had a seemingly unlimited supply of food, our stomach and long, extensive digestive system was used for storage of food, and for absorbing every possible usable molecule before passing waste. In the female reproductive system, for example, after a single egg is released from a single ovary, the leftover follicle cells form what is known as the corpus luteum, which will produce estrogen and progesterone, signaling the other ovary, or the same ovary, to not release another egg. This can prevent a woman from having more than one baby at a time. Though, sometimes, it does happen, as in the case of fraternal twins, but the human body by all costs tries to prevent this from occurring. In the circulatory system, think of how I described the different systems, systemic and pulmonary, and think of how that applies to adaptations in the circulatory system and the gas exchange system. 8 and 9 are pretty easy questions. 10. Think about it: plants are primary producers. They colonize a niche before any other heterotroph can begin living there. Plants use photons to fix CO2 into glucose and other molecules; herbivores eat these plants and use their energy for their own survival. Some herbivores may even have digestive symbionts which help them to fix nitrogen from the plant material. The carnivores/omnivores eat the herbivores and the plants, and so on and so forth. The role of oxygen is very simple: plants use water's protons in their photosystems; this produces water. Herbivores and omnivores and just about everything else breathes in oxygen, and what is oxygen used for? ATP production! Oxygen is the last electron acceptor in the electron transport chain, responsible for producing the important cellular energy molecule, ATP. I hope my notes helped!
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