environmental

Sociobiology

...ifactorily explained entirely by " cultural " or " environmental " factors alone. They contend that in order to fully understand behaviour, it must be analyzed with some focus on its evolutionary origins. If Darwin 's theory of natural selection is accepted, then inherited behavioural mechanisms that allowed an...

Red Queen

...ure where creatures must adapt quickly to changing environmental threats just to survive from generation to generation. In Lewis Carroll 's Through the Looking Glass , from which the metaphor is originally derived, Alice complains that she has to run just to stay in the same place. The character of the Red Q...

Receptor

...ry receptor is any structure which, on receiving environmental stimuli, produces an informative nerve impulse . In biochemistry , a receptor is a protein molecule that receives and responds to a specific neurotransmitter , hormone , or other substance. In immunology , a receptor is the region of an ...

Proteomics

...ifferent stages of its life cycle and in different environmental conditions. The entirety of proteins in existence in an organism throughout its life cycle, or on a smaller scale the entirety of proteins found in a particular cell type under a particular type of stimulation, are referred to as the proteome of...

Proteome

...a particular cell type under a particular set of environmental conditions such as exposure to hormone stimulation . It can also be useful to consider an organism's complete proteome . The complete proteome for an organism can be conceptualized as the complete set of proteins from all of the various cellular pr...

Primary nutritional groups

... of deriving reducing equivalents (electrons) from environmental sources to be used in biosynthetic pathways (e. g. in the form of NADH or NADPH). An organism is defined as organotrophic when it uses organic compounds as source of electrons, whereas it is defined as lithotrophic when it inorganic compounds. ...

Population dynamics

...ne or several populations , and biological and environmental processes influencing those changes. Population dynamics is the dominant branch of mathematical biology , which has a history of more than 200 years. The early period was dominated by demographic studies such as the work of Benjamin Gompertz ...

Phenotype

... determined by multiple genes and influenced by environmental factors. Thus, the identity of one or a few known alleles does not always enable prediction of the phenotype. Nevertheless, because phenotypes are much easier to observe than genotypes (it doesn't take chemistry or sequencing to determine a pers...

Parallel evolution

...extinct paleotheres both of which shared the same environmental space. Parallel evolution is a different phenomenon than convergent evolution and evolutionary relay . In convergent evolution , independent organisms acquire similar characteristics through their evolution in different habitats ( bird and fly...

Natural selection

..., natural selection is the result of genetic and environmental forces acting upon an organism. Contents sho...fore reproducing, or be less prolific. As long as environmental conditions remain the same, or similar enough that these traits continue to be adaptive, such traits...

Antibiotic resistance

... natural selection . The antibiotic action is an environmental pressure; those bacteria which have a mutation allowing them to survive will live on to reproduce. They will then pass this trait to their offspring, which will be a fully resistant generation. Several studies have demonstrated that patterns of ant...

Morphogenesis

...ed by the genetic "program" and can be modified by environmental factors. Several types of molecules are particul...s may be induced in organisms by hormones , or by environmental chemicals ranging from substances produced by other organisms to toxic chemicals or radionuclides...

Metapopulation

...969) "Some demographic and genetic consequences of environmental heterogeneity for biological control." Bulletin of the Entomology Society of America , 71 , 237-240 Hanski, I. Metapopulation Ecology Oxford University Press. 1999. ISBN 0198540655...

Marine biology

...ween oceans and ocean life, and global weather and environmental issues (such as carbon dioxide displacement). Recent marine biotechnology has focused largely on marine biomolecules , especially proteins , that may have uses in medicine or engineering.An interesting branch of marine biology is aquaculture .M...

Malaria

...in many countries in the 1970s due to its negative environmental impact. There is great controversy regarding this impact and the use of DDT to fight human diseases. Some claim that the ban is responsible for malaria deaths counted in tens of millions in tropical countries where the disease had been under control....

James D. Watson

...lding that the benefits far outweigh any plausible environmental dangers, and that many of the arguments against GM crops are unscientific or irrational. A discussion of his views on these matters are covered in some depth in his book DNA: The Secret of Life ( 2003 ), particularly in chapter 6. A frequent publi...

Insulin

...fluence of genetic susceptibility and influence of environmental factors, the best known being obesity , age, and physical inactivity, resulting in insulin resistance in cells requiring insulin for glucose absorption. This form of diabetes is strongly inherited. other types of impaired glucose tolerance (see ...

Extinction

...erefore said to be pseudoextinct. Currently, many environmental groups and governments are concerned with the extinction of species due to human intervention, and are attempting to combat further extinctions. Humans can cause extinction of a species through overharvesting , pollution , destruction of habitat ,...

Experimental evolution

...served in the laboratory as organisms adapt to new environmental conditions. With modern microbiological tools, it is possible to pinpoint the mutations that selection acts upon and what brought about the adaptations and to find out how exactly these mutations work. Because of the large number of genera...

Evolution

...ific beneficial heritable variation in response to environmental signals. If this is shown to be the case, then som...an framework, which avoided any connection between environmental signals and the production of heritable variation. Mutation Main article: Mutation Darw...

Epigenetics

...f nuclear DNA . This includes the study of how environmental factors affecting a parent can result in changes in the way genes are expressed in the offspring (see Waterland citation). In both cases, the object of study includes how gene regulatory information that is not expressed in DNA sequences is transmi...

Morphogenesis

...ed by the genetic "program" and can be modified by environmental factors. Several types of molecules are particul...s may be induced in organisms by hormones , or by environmental chemicals ranging from substances produced by other organisms to toxic chemicals or radionuclides...

Cold-blooded

...ources of heat, such as solar radiation . As the environmental temperature increases, the animal's metabolic rate will increase. Lizards, fish, and amphibians are examples of ectotherms.Whereas an endotherm, or warm-blooded animal will use up to 98% of its energy for heat production, an ectotherm has all thi...

Diabetes mellitus

...e world varies substantially, almost certainly for environmental and lifestyle reasons. There is also a strong inhe...s appears to be triggered by infection, stress, or environmental factors (e.g. exposure to a causative agent). There is a genetic element in the susceptibility of in...

Cladistics

....e. characters that resemble each other because of environmental conditions or function, and not because of common ancestry. A well-known example of convergent evolution is wings. Though the wings of birds and insects may superficially resemble one another and serve the same function, each evolved independently fr...

Cancer

...o DNA (genetic material) through genetic and environmental factors , leading to aberrant growth regulation ...ncer cases can be attributed to smoking, diet, and environmental pollution. Prevention Prevention is defined as the reduction of cancer mortality via reduct...

Botany

....3 Utilise medicine and materials 1.4 Understand environmental changes 2 History 2.1 Modern botany (sin...sses Utilise medicine and materials Understand environmental changes Feed the world Virtually all of the food we eat comes from plants, either directly fr...

Biotechnology

...nclude an organism designed to grow under specific environmental conditions or in the presence (or absence) of certain agricultural chemicals. Green biotechnology tends to produce more environmentally friendly solutions than traditional industrial agriculture. An example of this would include a plant engineered t...

Biodiversity

... climate , decrease of flooding, drought and other environmental disasters. These functions are important for ecos...more diverse an ecosystem is better able withstand environmental stress and consequently is more productive. The loss of a species is thus likely to decreases the ab...

Archaea

...r groups have been tentatively created for certain environmental samples and the peculiar species Nanoarchaeum equitans , discovered in 2002 by Karl Stetter , but their affinities are uncertain. Woese argued that the bacteria, archaea, and eukaryotes each represent a primary line of descent that diverged earl...

Antibiotic resistance

... natural selection . The antibiotic action is an environmental pressure; those bacteria which have a mutation allowing them to survive will live on to reproduce. They will then pass this trait to their offspring, which will be a fully resistant generation. Several studies have demonstrated that patterns of ant...

Adaptive radiation

...hat cover the new ecological niches created by the environmental change. An example of adaptive radiation as the result of an environmental change is the rapid spread and development of mammalian species after the extinction of the dinosa...