Study the 4 Big Ideas of AP Biology for your exam. This guide covers evolution, cellular processes and energy, genetic information, and biological systems interactions.
Q: What are the Big Ideas?
Answer: 1. The process of evolution drives the diversity and unity of life.2. Biological systems use free energy and molecular building blocks to grow, reproduce, and maintain dynamic homeostasis.3. Living systems store, retrieve, transmit, and respond to information essential to life processes.4. Biological systems interact, and these systems and their interactions possess complex properties.
Q: 1.A) What is evolution?
Answer: Change in the genetic makeup of a POPULATION overtime.
Q: 1.A.2) What is Darwin’s theory of natural selection?
Answer: Inheritable variations occur in individuals in a population. Due to competition for resources that are often limited, individuals with favorable variations or phenotypes are more likely to survive and reproduce, thus passing traits to subsequent generations.
Q: 1.A.3) Other than natural selection, what also drives evolutionary change?
Answer: Random processes, such as genetic drift (nonselective process in small generations) and reduction of genetic variation within a given a given population (can increase differences between populations of the same species).
Q: 1.A.4) How is biological evolution supported?
Answer: 1. Fossils hint the organisms relationship with existing organisms in phylogenetic trees.2. Vestigial structures3. Similarities in DNA nucleotide and protein sequences4. Graphical analysis of the above
Q: 1.B) What evidence supports the relatedness of all domains?
Answer: 1. DNA and RNA are carriers of genetic information through transcription, translation, and replication.2. Metabolic pathways
Q: 1.B.b) What evidence supports the relatedness of all eukaryotes?
Answer: 1. Cytoskeleton2. Membrane bound organelles3. Linear chomosomes4. Endomembrane systems (ex. nuclear envelope)
Q: 1.C.2) How can speciation occur?
Answer: When two populations become reproductively isolated from each other.
Q: 2.A) How do autotrophic cells capture free energy?
Answer: 1. Photosynthesis2. Chemiosis
Q: 2.A.1) What is photosynthesis?
Answer: Photosynthesis traps free energy present in sunlight that, in turn, is used to produce carbohydrates from carbon dioxide.
Q: 2.A.1) What is chemiosis?
Answer: Chemiosis captures energy present in inorganic chemicals.
Q: 2.A.1) What is the function of cellular respiration and fermentation?
Answer: They harvest free energy from sugars to produce free energy carriers, including ATP.
Q: 2) What are two examples in which cells and organisms exchange matter with the environment?
Answer: 1. Water and nutrients are are used in the synthesis of new molecules.2. Carbon moves from the environment to organisms where it is incorporated to carbohydrates, proteins, nucleic acids or fats.
Q: 2) What is the function of cell membranes? What is selective permeability?
Answer: Membranes allow cells to create and maintain internal environments that differ from external environments. Organelle membranes allow specialized functions for each region.Selective permeability is the transport of molecules across the cell membrane through osmosis, diffusion, and active transport to maintain dynamic homeostasis.
Q: 2) What is the function of feedback mechanisms? What is the difference between negative and positive feedback?
Answer: Feedback mechanisms maintain dynamic homeostasis by allowing them to respond to changes in their internal and external environments.Negative feedback loops maintain optimal internal environments, and positive feedback mechanisms amplify responses.
Q: 3) How do homeostatic mechanisms reflect continuity due to common ancestry and change due to evolution?
Answer: The defense mechanisms of plants and animals against disruptions of dynamic homeostasis are similar, hinting evolution. The regulation of of the timing of developmental, physiological, and behavioral events increase fitness of individuals and long-term survival of populations.
Q: 3) How does DNA allow the continuity of life?
Answer: DNA transmits heritable information to the next generation; by using both strands of the double-stranded DNA, existing information can be preserved and duplicated with high fidelity in the replication process.
Q: 3) What are mutations and why do they matter?
Answer: Mutations are random changes in DNA nucleotide sequences that can occur as errors through chemical instability or environmental changes. Changes in the nucleotide sequences can change the amino acid sequence of the polypeptide.
Q: 3) How must information from DNA be used to direct cellular processes?
Answer: The information must be transcribed (DNA to RNA) and then translated (RNA to protein). These processes play important roles in determining metabolism.
Q: 3) What is mitosis?
Answer: Heritable information is packaged into chromosomes that are passed to daughter cells. Alternating with interphase in the cell cycle, mitosis followed by cytokinesis provides a mechanism in which each daughter cell receives an identical and a complete complement of chromosomes. Mitosis ensures fidelity in the transmission of heritable information, and production of identical progeny allows organisms to grow, replace cells, and reproduce asexually.
Q: 3) What is meiosis?
Answer: Sexual reproduction involves the recombination of heritable information from both parents through fusion of gametes during fertilization. Meiosis followed by fertilization provides a spectrum of possible phenotypes in offspring and on which natural selection operates.
Q: 3) Structure and function in biology involve what two interacting aspects?
Answer: The two interacting aspects are the presence of necessary genetic information and the correct and timely expression of this information.
Q: 3)What are some occurrences that allow genetic variation to thrive?
Answer: 1. Organisms that reproduce sexually offer one gamete to their offspring, while its mate offers the other, so the offspring cannot be genetically the same with one parent.2. Mistakes in DNA replication3. Viruses can introduce variation in host genetic material.
Q: 3) How do cells communicate with other cells and respond to the external environment?
Answer: Cell signaling pathways are determined by interacting signal and receptor molecules, and signaling cascades direct complex behaviors that affect physiological responses in the organism by altering gene expression or protein activity.
Q: 4) What two properties provide robustness to biological systems?
Answer: Biocomplexity and diversity enable greater resiliency and flexibility to tolerate and respond to changes in the environment. The more complex and diverse the system is, the greater the capacity to respond to environmental changes.
Q: 4) What results in the specialization and the divergence of cells, organs, and tissues?
Answer: Interaction between external stimuli and gene expression. The interaction between these specialized cells, organs, and tissues determine essential biological activities for the organism as a whole.
Q: 4) How do molecules interact with each other? Organelles? Populations?
Answer: The subcomponents of a biological polymer determine the properties of that polymer.Organelles interact with each other as part of a coordinated system that keeps the cell alive, growing and reproducing.As environmental conditions change, community structure changed both physically and biologically.
Q: 4) What are some examples of interactions on molecular, cellular, and organ levels?
Answer: Competition and cooperation are important in the activity of biological systems. Interactions between molecules alter their structure and function. Competition between cells may occur under conditions of resource limitations. Coordination of organs and organ systems gives the organism the ability to use matter and energy efficiently.
Q: 4) What factor gives biological systems a greater flexibility to respond to changes in its environment?
Answer: Variations in components. Variation in molecular units provides cells with a wider range of potential functions. A population is often measured in terms of genomic diversity and its ability to respond to change. Species with genetic variation and the resultant phenotypes can respond and adapt to changing environmental conditions.
Q: 4) Why are ecosystems with little diversity among the parts less resilient to changes in the environment? How can an ecosystem maintain diversity?
Answer: Ecosystems with little diversity have a smaller chance of surviving a dramatic environmental change, or changes in the biotic factors (such as the introduction of a new predator). An ecosystem can maintain diversity with the help of keystone species, since they maintain the balance in the ecosystem’s species interactions.