Download Exam3StudyQuestions

Study Focus for Part III of the course
We will cover a LOT of pages of the text in this portion of the course. While, in
principle, you are responsible for all of the topics, I would prefer that you learn a few
things well rather than a lot of things poorly. To that end, here are some study focus
questions for this section of the course:
*** This will almost certainly be modified as the semester progresses. ***
Reading
Topic
Concentrate your efforts on sections:
Origin of Life
25.1 and 25.3
Viruses/Bacteria/Archea
27.1; 27.3 to 27.5 (skim 27.2)
Protists
28.1; skim the rest (but see questions below)
Fungi
Chap 31.1 to 31.3; also Basidiomycetes and
Ascomycetes.
Animal Development
Chap 32: all
Animal Development
Chap 47: all
Plant Development and Anatomy
(skim 35.1); 35.2 to end.
Plant Transport
Chap 36.2 to 36.5
Animals Intro to structure and
function
Chap 40: (skim 40.1) 40.2 to end.
Circulation and Gas Exchange
Chap 42.1-2; (skim 42.3); 42.5-6
Study focus questions:
Origin of Life
 What was the early earth like? What are two hypotheses for how complex
organic molecules arose?
 What is the general timeline of major events in evolution (to the nearest halfbillion years)
 What were the first replicators (“protobionts”) like? What is the evidence?
Bacteria and Archaea
 What are the three domains of life?
 How do prokaryotes and eukaryotes differ?
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What are some of the similarities and differences between bacteria and archaea?
Why do we now think those two groups are separate domains of life?
Know something about the different groups of bacteria. How do cyanobacteria
differ from other groups? What are Gram positive vs Gram negative?
You should be able to interpret the phylogenetic tree of the three domains of life
to identify monophyletic groups, and identify closely- vs. distantly related
subgroups.
Protists and the origin of Eukaryotes:
 What is the evidence that endosymbiosis was important for the evolution of
eukaryotes?
 You should be familiar the 5 major supergroups of protists (for example,
recognize the name, know that it is a kind of protist, and something about its
characteristics).
 What are the difference between brown- red- and green-algae?
 Which groups of protists are most closely related to animals? to fungi? to land
plants? How can we tell?
 Where does Paramecium fit in? What is its life cycle like? How does that differ
from multicellular animal and plant life cycles?
Multicellularity and Fungi
 Contrast the various intermediate forms of multicellularity that we talked about:
Anabaena, Volvox, and Dictyostelium
 What are advantantages/disadvantages of multicellularity?
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 What are fungi? How do they differ from plants and animals?
 Explain the life cyle of a basidiomycete mushroom, with particular attention to
meiosis, plasmogamy, and karyogamy. How does that differ from plant and
animal life cycles?
 How do basidiomycete and and ascomycete fungi differ?
Animal development
 How are animals and Choanoflagellates related?
 What are some of the major variations in body plans and development of animals?
o radial vs bilateral symmetry
o protostome vs deuterostome development
o coelom organization
o What are examples of each?
 Explain the early stages of development of the frog embryo
o cleavage, blastula, gastrula
 What are the three major tissue types? Which organs develop from each?
 How are the basic body axes (anterior/posterior, dorsal/ventral) determined?
 Explain the importance of cell position, movement and adhesion in development.
What are some examples of each?
 What are transcription factors and why are they important for development?
What, in particular, are hox (homeotic) genes? How does the gene myoD affect
cell determination and differentiation?
Plant development
 What are some of the similarities and differences between the developmental
mechanisms of animals and plants? (e.g. movement, local signaling, positional
effects, control of cell division, transcription factors, hox genes, etc)
 Why do we say that plants have “indeterminate” growth?
 What are shoot- and root- apical meristems? Why are they important?
 How are floral organs specified?
 What is secondary growth? What is the role of the vascular cambium? You
should be able to draw or label the cross section of a tree, identify the xylem and
phloem the oldest and most recently produced xylem and phloem.
Plant transport
 You should be able to explain osmosis in detail.
 What are the components of water potential () and how does that affect the
movement of water?
 Why is energy required for nutrient uptake? How do plants do it?
 What is the difference in the mechanism of fluid movement in the xylem vs the
phloem? What are “sources” and “sinks”?
 How do stomata work?
Animal Structure and Function
 Concentrate on feedback loops and thermoregulation as one example of the
relationship between form and function.
 What are countercurrent exchange mechanisms and how do they work?
 How do energy budgets scale with body size?
Circulatory and Respiratory System
 What are open and closed circulatory systems?
 Why do some organisms (like us) have double circulatory systems?
 You should be able to diagram or label the human circulatory system showing the
flow of blood through arteries, veins, capillaries, heart and lungs. What do each
of the 4 ventricles do?
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Understand the relationship of diffusion, partial pressures, and capillary thickness
in gas exchange.
How does that relate to the structure of lungs and gills?
How do differences in the breathing mechanisms of birds and mammals affect
respiratory function?