AP Biology Unit 8

Big Idea:

Student Expectations:

Main Ideas

Big Idea 4: System - Biological systems interact, and these systems and their interactions possess complex properties.

Enduring Understanding

4.A: Interactions within biological systems lead to complex properties.

4.C: Naturally occurring diversity among and between components within biological systems affects interactions with the environment.

Essential Knowledge

4.A.4: Organisms exhibit complex properties due to interactions between their constituent parts.

4.A.5: Communities are composed of populations of organisms that interact in complex ways.

4.C.2: Environmental factors influence the expression of the genotype in an organism.

4.C.3: The level of variation in a population affects population dynamics.

4.C.4: The diversity of species within an ecosystem may influence the stability of the ecosystem.

Student Learning Targets:

Bacteria and Archaea

• The key ways in which prokaryotes differ form eukaryotes with respect to genome, membrane-bound organelles, size, and reproduction.
• Mechanisms that contribute to genetic diversity in prokaryotes, including transformation, conjugation, transduction, and mutation.

Protists

• Protista is not longer considered a kingdom! This probably contradicts what you learned in your introductory biology class.
• How chloroplasts and mitochondria evolved through endosymbiosis.

Plant Diversity: How Plants Colonized Land

• Why land plants are thought to have evolved from green algae.
• Some of the disadvantages and advantages of life on land.
• That plants have a unique life cycle termed alternation of generations with a gametophyte generation and sporophyte generation.
• The role of antheridia and archegonia in gametophytes.
• The major characteristics of bryophytes.
• The major characteristics of seedless vascular plants.

Plant Diversity II: The Evolution of Seed Plants

• Key adaptations to life on land unique to seed plants.
• The evolutionary significance of seeds and pollen.
• The role of flowers and fruits in angiosperm reproduction.
• The role of stamens and carpels in angiosperm reproduction.

Fungi

• The characteristics of fungi.
• Important ecological roles of fungi in mycorrhizal associations, and as decomposers and parasitic plant pathogens.

Introduction to Animal Diversity

• The characteristics of animals.
• The stages of animal development
• How to sort the animal phyla based on symmetry, development of a body cavity, and the fate of the blastopore.

Invertebrates

• The traits from figure 7.11 which are used to divide the animals into groups.
• Examples and unique traits for each phylum discussed.
• The evolution of systems for gas exchange, respiration, excretion, circulation, and nervous control.

Vertebrates

• The four chordate characteristics.
• Traits which distinguish each of the following groups: Chondrichthyes, Osteichthyes, Amphibia, Reptilia, Birds, and Mammalia.
• Adaptations that allowed animals to move onto land.
• How the three classes of mammals differ in their reproduction.

Essential Questions:

Extra Information:

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