Biology Dictionary
Created by Kathryn Rainelle Cornish
Acid Rain
Supporting Facts: When industrial gas discharge such as sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides combine with water it creates biologically harmful rain that is caused by pollutants released by human activity
Related Words: Rain, snow, sleet, fog, acid precipitation
Active Immunity
Supporting Facts: Occurs when a person is exposed to a live pathogen and triggers the immune system to produce antibodies
Related Words: Acquired immunity, passive immunity
Active Transport
Supporting Facts: This action requires energy and the energy is supplied through respiration using ATP
Related Words: Transport, ATP, cell membrane
Adaptation
Supporting Facts: Describes how organisms change over time in response to the environmental change around them
Related Words: Adjustment
Alleles
Supporting Facts: Punnett squares have alleles of one parent along the top and side of the square, alleles are seen in the hardy-weinberg equation, alleles are a part of recessive and dominant traits
Related Words: Genotype, phenotype
Amino Acids
Supporting Facts: A large proportion of our cells, muscles, and tissues is made up of amino acids
Related Words: Enzyme, codon
Anaerobic Respiration
Supporting Facts: Sometimes there isn't enough oxygen around plants and animals for them to breathe. In order to survive they carry out respiration in the absence of oxygen to produce energy. Only a small amount of energy is released
Related Words: Aerobic respiration, cellular respiration
Animal Cell
Supporting Facts: Animal cells are multicellular and are surrounded by plasma membrane
Related Words: Plant cell
Antibiotics
Supporting Facts: Antibiotics are borrowed from microorganisms such as bacteria or fungi
Related Words: Virus, infection, bacteria
Antigens
Supporting Facts: Helps produce antibodies againtst the pathogen invading the body
Related Words: Antibody, immune system
Asexual Reproduction
Supporting Facts: Is a copy of parent and only has one parent
Related Words: sexual reproduction, reproduction
ATP
Supporting Facts: Also known as biological energy and is the reusable form of energy in your cells
Related Words: Adenosine triphosphate,
Autotroph
Supporting Facts: Sulfur bacteria uses H2S to help make their food instead of using water. They oxidize the H2S into sulfate so they can use it to make food
Related Words: Heterotroph
Bacteria
Supporting Facts: Bacteria can cause sicknesses in organisms, some bacteria can be good
Related Words: Pathogen
Behavioral Adaptations
Supporting Facts: Behaviors are not always inherited but they are learned. For example wild birds will flee from humans, but birds in cities see humans as a source for food. This trait is learned not inherited.
Related Words: Structural adaptation
Bioaccumulation
Supporting Facts: Is a threat of the organisms health and the environment
Related Words: Bioconcentration, biological magnification
Biochemical Similarities (evolution)
Supporting Facts: The genetic code of all life on Earth is written in the same chemical building blocks
Related Words: Comparative embryology, comparative anatomy
Biodiversity
Supporting Facts: Biodiversity can be an important indicator in how healthy and well functioning an ecosystem is
Related Words: Genetic diversity, species diversity, ecosystem diversity
Biomes
Supporting Facts: The biome is biggest level of ecological classification within the biosphere
Related Words: Ecosphere, ecosystem, habitat
Biotechnology
Supporting Facts: Developing crops with enhanced nutrition that solves vitamin and nutrient deficiencies is an example because you are taking a living organism and making it do what you want it to. In this case you are taking a crop and making it solve vitamin and nutrient deficiencies.
Related Words: Biochemistry
Birth Rate
Supporting Facts: Expressed per 1000 population per year
Related Words: Death rate, fertility rate
Budding
Supporting Facts: Identical to its parent, buds may be produced anywhere on the plant or only in a specialized part of the plant
Related Words: Bud grafting, reproduction
Camouflage
Definition: The use of biological coloration to disguise location, identity, and movement from prey. Used as protection from predators.
Supporting Facts: Animals use the background of the environment to blend in such as a green snake would in grass
Related Words: Concealing coloration, background matching, countershading
Carbohydrate
Definition: An organic compound made of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen
Supporting Facts: The energy stores in most animals are carbohydrates
Related Words: Glucose, lactose
Carbon Cycle
Definition: Circulation of carbon in different forms through nature
Supporting Facts: The source of carbon found in living things are called carbon dioxide and contribute to the carbon cycle
Related Words: Fossil fuel
Carrying Capacity
Definition: The average population size of a species
Supporting Facts: Carrying capacity is different in each species because of the food, shelter, and social requirements
Related Words: Population
Cell
Definition: Membrane bound structure that contains the fundamental molecules of life and what all living things are made of
Supporting Facts: A single cell such as bacteria or yeast is a complete organism itself
Related Words: Cell cycle, membrane
Cell Cycle
Definition: The ordered events that take place in a cell in preparation for cell division
Supporting Facts: The cycle is a four stage process in which cells increase in size, copies its DNA, prepares to divide, and divides
Related Words: Mitosis, Meiosis
Cell Differentiation
Definition: When cells produce other cells that are different from themselves
Supporting Facts: Usually produced for a specialized purpose. One cell performs a different function on your body than another cell would, depending where on the body. Your lung cells have different functions than your brain cells.
Related Words: Cell division
Cell Wall
Supporting Facts: Cell walls are found in plants
Related Words: Cell membrane, cytoplasm
Cellular Respiration
Supporting Facts: Cellular respiration takes place in the cells of animals, plants, fungi, and also other protists
Related Words: Aerobic respiration, protist
Cellulose
Supporting Facts: A complex carbohydrate consisting 3,000 or more glucose units
Related Words: Oxycellulose
CFCs
Supporting Facts: Contains carbon, chlorine, and fluorine; used for refrigeration; can lead to ozone depletion
Related Words: ozone layer
Charles Darwin
Supporting Facts: Believed that all species developed from common ancestors and believed that species survived through a process called "natural selection"
Related Words: Alfred Russel Wallace, natural selection, evolutionary tree
Chemical Energy
Supporting Facts: Our bodies use chemical energy to perform daily functions
Related Words: Energy, free energy
Chloroplast
Supporting Facts: Photosynthesis takes place in the chloroplast
Related Words: Chlorophyll
Chromatids
Supporting Facts: They separate completely during a later stage and then in an even later stage it becomes a daughter chromosome
Related Words: Sister chromatids, homologous chromosomes
Chromosomes
Supporting Facts: In humans each chromosome contains 23 pairs of chromosomes, for a total of 46
Related Words: Centromere, gene, chromatid
Classical Conditioning
Supporting Facts: Classical conditioning happens when a neutral stimulus is paired with an unconditional stimulus
Related Words: Neutral stimulus, unconditional stimulus, conditioned response, unconditioned response
Classification
Supporting Facts: Living things were classified into six groups: kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, and genus and species
Related Words: Modern classification, taxonomy
Climate Change
Supporting Facts: Oceans warming and becoming more acidic, icebergs melting, and ocean levels rising are all proof that the earth is warming
Related Words: Climate feedback, climate lag
Cloning
Supporting Facts: Clones are not always identical. They're genetically the same but the environment plays an important role in how the organism turns out.
Related Words: Reproduction, twin
Co-Dominant
Supporting Facts: When alleles from a white and red flower are present their offspring would be pink because both alleles are codominant
Related Words: Dominant, alleles, recessive
Codon Chart
Supporting Facts: If you look at the chart is shows three letters which are the nucleotides and it will encode a specific amino acid
Related Words: Purine, start codon, stop codon
Coevolution
Supporting Facts: For example prey may develop camouflage techniques which may make predators progressively better at finding them
Related Words: Evolution
Commensalism
Supporting Facts: The organism benefiting may gain food supply or shelter
Related Words: Mutualism, symbiosis
Competition
Supporting Facts: Organisms have competition with food, shelter, mates, etc.
Related Words: Natural selection, intraspecific, interspecific
Conservation
Supporting Facts: An example of conservation is cutting your water footprint can help save fresh water ecosystems such as the Colorado River
Related Words: Conservation biology, ecosystem
Consumers
Supporting Facts: Consumers are above producers on the food chain or pyramid
Related Words: Producer, trophic level, secondary consumers
Convergent Evolution
Supporting Facts: Is the opposite from divergent evolution where organisms evolve different traits
Related Words: Divergent evolution, biological evolution, speciation
Courtship
Supporting Facts: Courtship is important because it helps to ensure that breeding will occur
Related Words: Couple, estrus, offspring, reproduction
Crossing Over
Supporting Facts: The whole effect of crossing over is to provide variety to the population
Related Words: Recombination, chiasma, gametes
DDT
Supporting Facts: Some strains of the insects have become resistant to the DDT
Related Words: PCB
Death Rate
Supporting Facts: Death rate is an important factor when controlling the population
Related Words: Birth rate
Decomposers
Supporting Facts: Decomposers are important because without them breaking down earths matter the dead bodies of animals would just pile up. The soil also wouldn't be as rich
Related Words: Consumers, producers, scavengers
Decomposition
Supporting Facts: Knowing decomposition can help us take better care of our environment because a plastic bag can take 20 to 1,000 years to decompose since it's not organic.
Related Words: Fermentation, dissolution
Deforestation
Supporting Facts: It affects to ecosystem each time we cut down trees leaving many organisms and species homeless. Agriculture is the main cause of deforestation.
Related Words: Agriculture
Deletions (mutations)
Supporting Facts: Causes of this could be because of unequal crossing over, breaking without rejoining, losses from translocation, and chromosomal crossovers within a chromosomal inversion
Related Words: Mutations, deficiency, mutation
Denaturaion
Supporting Facts: Changes in pH affect the chemistry of amino acids
Related Words: Hydrogen bonding
Dichtomous Keys
Supporting Facts: Keys consists of series of choices that lead the user to the correct name of a given item
Related Words: Polytomous key
Ecosystem
Supporting Facts: The tropical rain forest is an ecosystem because it contains the living things such as trees and monkeys as well as the nonliving things such as the rocks and rain(water)
Related Words: Community, population, environment, habitat
Energy Pyramid
Supporting Facts: Only ten percent of energy is passed on to the next trophic level in this pyramid
Related Words: Food chain, food web
Enzymes
Supporting Facts: They reduce the activation energy
Related Words: Active site
Food Chain
Supporting Facts: The arrows indicate the energy that is being passed on
Related Words: Food web
Food Web
Supporting Facts: The food web always starts off with the sun because that's the main energy source
Related Words: Food chain
Fossil Fuels
Supporting Facts: Is a source of non renewable energy
Related Words: Renewable energy
Gamete
Supporting Facts: Are produced by meiosis
Related Words: Diploid cell, haploid cell, fertilization
Genotype
Supporting Facts: An individuals genotype adds to the entire complex of genes passed down from both parents
Related Words: Phenotype, allele
Glycogen
Supporting Facts: Occurs mainly in the liver and muscle tissue and is easily converted to glucose
Related Words: Cellulose, starch, maltose
Haploid
Supporting Facts: Reproductive cells are usually haploid cells
Related Words: Diploid, gamete
Hemoglobin
Supporting Facts: Having less hemoglobin can lead to anemia because hemoglobin is in red blood cells that contain iron as well and having less of that will cause anemia because of the lack of iron
Related Words: Plasma
Homeostasis
Supporting Facts: Involves controlling the balance of water and minerals in the body
Related Words: Equilibrium
Imprinting
Supporting Facts: Type of automatic learning
Related Words: innate behavior
Innate behavior
Supporting Facts: Crying for humans is an innate behavior because it's an automatic reaction when exposed to a stimulus
Related Words: Learned behavior
Insulin
Supporting Facts: The lack of insulin causes a form of diabetes
Related Words: Diabetes
Jaundice
Supporting Facts: Happens when the elevated levels of bilirubin builds up in the blood
Related Words: Neonatal jaundice
Karyotype
Supporting Facts: In order to get this picture the chromosomes are isolated, stained, and viewed under the microscope
Related Words: Karyoplast
Kudzu
Supporting Facts: The growing problem of this plant is that it can cause environmental concerns since it affects the soil around it
Related Words: Soil productivity
Learned Behaviors
Supporting Facts: Animals such as monkeys can develop learned behaviors by observation
Related Words: Insight learning, innate behavior
Limited Resources
Supporting Facts: Coal is an example of a limited resource because it's naturally available in certain parts of the Earth. Coal is formed by decomposing organisms that are compacted.
Related Words: Natural resource, fossil fuels
Lipid
Supporting Facts: Provides a source and store of energy and is an important part of the membrane that surrounds every cell
Related Words: Fats, fatty acids, steroids
Meiosis
Supporting Facts: Meiosis is in sexual reproduction
Related Words: Mitosis
Migration
Supporting Facts: Migration helps organisms to get better conditioning for living
Related Words: Behavior, stimulus
Mitosis
Supporting Facts: For asexual reproduction
Related Words: Meiosis
Natural Selection
Supporting Facts: Natural selection helps the next generation thrive
Related Words: Evolution
Niche
Supporting Facts: Niche shows the relationship between the organism and it's habitat
Related Words: Habitat, ecosystem
Nutrition
Supporting Facts: Good nutrition will help you develop much better and have more energy than a person with poor nutrition
Related Words: Fermentation, Digestion
Osmosis
Supporting Facts: Water will naturally move from an area with a lower concentration of solutes to a higher concentration to achieve equilibrium
Related Words: Equilibrium, concentration, solutes
Parasitism
Supporting Facts: An example of parasitism would be a tick feeding off of a dog
Related Words: Host, parasite, predation
Pathogen
Supporting Facts: Pathogen transmission involves escape from the host, travel to, and infect the new host
Related Words: Bacteria, viruses
Predation
Supporting Facts: Predation is important because it can be a method of population control
Related Words: Symbolic relationship, mutualism
Quadriceps femoris
Supporting Facts: When the quadriceps femoris contracts your leg straightens
Related Words: Femur, patella
Recessive
Supporting Facts: Recessive traits aren't shown because it is masked by the dominate gene
Related Words: Gene, traits, dominate
Renewable resource
Supporting Facts: Solar energy, biomass, and oxygen are all examples of renewable sources
Related Words: Non renewable sources
Ribosome
Supporting Facts: Connect the amino acids one strand at a time to build long chains
Related Words: RNA, organelle, protein synthesis, enzyme
Species
Supporting Facts: Horses and zebras are different species because their offspring's are sterile not able to produce fertile offspring
Related Words: Family, genus
Spores
Supporting Facts: Are made to grow a new plant and just needs a thriving environment to grow in
Related Words: Sporogenesis, ovule
Succession
Supporting Facts: The development that takes place during any form of succession depends on a combination of different factors such as soil moisture, temperature, and wind
Related Words: Climax community, secondary succession, primary succession
Taxonomy
Supporting Facts: Organisms are classified by their shared characteristics with other organisms
Related Words: Phylogeny, nomenclature
Traits
Supporting Facts: Traits are eye color, freckles, skin color, hair type, height, etc.
Related Words: Phenotype
Translation
Supporting Facts: In translation the messenger RNA also known as mRNA. produced by transcription of DNA, is decoded by a ribosome to create an amino acid
Related Words: Transcription
Unicellular
Supporting Facts: Pertains to an organisms functions that are carried out by one cell such as bacteria and algae
Related Words: Multi-cellular
Vaccine
Supporting Facts: Created to act as an antigen in your body without including the disease
Related Words: Disease, virus, antigen, pathogen
Vacuole
Supporting Facts: Keeps everything bad separate from the cell
Related Words: Cytoplasm, lysosome, smooth ER
Viruses
Supporting Facts: Not all viruses cause disease and can only replicate with a host cell
Related Words: Bacteria, pathogen, disease
Water Runoff
Supporting Facts: Plays a major part of the water cycle because it's another source of how water would come back to the ground
Related Words: Rainfall, slope, erosion
Watson and Crick
Supporting Facts: Highlighted a milestone in the history of science and created the birth of molecular biology that focuses on the knowledge of how genes control the chemical change within a cell
Related Words: RNA, double-helix
X chromosome
Supporting Facts: Two x chromosomes are needed for a girl (XX). One x is needed for a male (XY)
Related Words: Y chromosome
Xylem
Supporting Facts: Water and nutrients move up the plant while the sugars move down to the roots
Related Words: Phloem, vascular plants
Y chromosome
Supporting Facts: The Y chromosome is always paired matched with the X chromosome
Related Words: X chromosome
Zygote
Supporting Facts: Is the first stage in development of the genetically unique offspring
Related Words: Embryo, egg cell, sperm cell