BIOL10511 Biodiversity

Lecture 1 Introduction and overview of the unit.

Textbooks, lecture notes, learning modules, “extra reading”, feedback &

handouts.

The main recommended textbook (Reece et al. “Campbell - Biology”;

publ:Pearson) and supplementary reading materials are outlined in the unit
outline (on BB and in the FLS First Year Handbook - the ninth edition of the
textbook was published in 2011, and all previous editions are now even more
out of date than this book, so best to refer to this edition or at worst the 8th!).
BUT the “syllabus” for the unit is the lecture notes – there is no need to
purchase a text book, especially if you studied biology at high school/A level.
Succinct notes, the intended learning outcomes and key terms will be
published on the Blackboard site for the unit shortly after each lecture (within
24h). Diagrams, pictures, movies etc will NOT be incorporated in the notes.
If the notes contain numbers in square parentheses, they will be referring to
figure numbers in the core supporting text (Reece et al.); otherwise the source
will be specified (e.g. “[Hickman, 4.2]”, means Figure 4.2 in the Hickman et al.
textbook). There is far more information in the text books than covered in the
lectures, and considerably more up to date information in the lectures than in
the textbooks, so the lecture notes are essential reading. The eLearning
modules are there to help you learn (they are not just assessments). They
do not start until early October.

Don’t be fooled into thinking that because their marks contribute only 5% of
the unit mark that it might be ok not to bother with the eLearning modules.
The format of some questions is like that of many of the questions you will find
on the examination paper, and others will (hopefully!) make you think more
deeply about the material in the unit, and integrate the information. They are
the way to make sure you are keeping up with the material. Some of the
questions will relate to the “extra” reading I provide. Don’t be fooled by the
word “extra” – they are only extra to the lecture notes, not in any way optional
if you want all the material relevant to the course (and exam!). You will pass
the exam if you don’t do this reading and only learn the lecture notes, but if
you want room for comfort (or want good, as opposed to bare pass, marks)
you are strongly advised to do at least the most highly recommended extra
reading. Remember – each unit ought to be about 100 hours of work (and you
will only receive 22 lectures). The eLearning modules also provide feedback
– on each question, so you can assess how well you are doing all along the
way. The Discussion Board for the unit may also be useful for feedback (from
your peers and from me – if and when I feel that I should input to a dialogue
posted there). The mid-semester exam will also be a chance to get feedback
(more about this later). Lastly, handouts should also help you. They too are
not “extra” but integral to the unit – some will bear unlabelled diagrams and
material to supplement the text books and lecture notes. If you miss the
lecture please make sure that you access them from Blackboard and copy
someone else's for any labels. NB 1. If you have any problems with accessing
or completing the Blackboard material for this unit please do NOT contact me,
but follow the enquiry to the eLearning team from any Blackboard page. I
check that I can access the documents on my computer, if you cannot, please
try a computer in one of the Stopford microlabs or computer clusters on the
main Uni site then contact the eLearning team. 2. The handouts will usually
be posted on Blackboard at least a day in advance of the lecture, and the
lecture outline (document on the home page) gives the titles for each lecture,
so all students, and especially those with special needs, should be able to get
a good idea of the content of each lecture in advance. (Handouts on the BB
site are in colour)

(more about the ePoster in later lectures – this is NOT the same as the
tutorial group posters!)

Aims of this lecture.

1. To provide a new perspective about organismal importance, abundance

and diversity.

2. To provide a new way to view the evolutionary time scale of our planet.

1. We are all familiar with many animals and plants. You may have
mammalian pets, and even if you have no garden at home, if you look out of a
train or building windows you immediately encounter what most people
understand by the term "plants". But our perspective is very biased by the fact
that we are large, terrestrial mammals – vertebrate animals which have had a
profound influence on the planet and many of its other organisms. If you have
done biology before you will probably have covered photosynthesis, and
doubtless appreciate that reasons why plants are important include the fact
that they feed us and provide the oxygen we breathe - but which plants? The
most familiar are cultivated and crop plants, such as sunflowers (see the Tree
of Life, esp. the simplified version I have loaded on this area of BB) and on
the whole, these are flowering plants. The vast majority of our impressions
about “plants” are based on these angiosperms. Similarly, if you have done an
“A” level based on the specifications of most examination boards, you could
be forgiven for thinking that the only animals of any importance at all are
humans (or at least mammals). This provides a very biased perspective of
Biodiversity. Over two thirds of our planet is covered in water, over 90% of the
habitable environments on the planet are aquatic. Easily the most successful,
abundant and important group of “plants”, for example, therefore has to be the
algae, which includes seaweeds. The movie you will see more of later in the
course shows seaweed “forests under the sea”, which support enormous
diversity of other life forms.

“Importance to man” is what most of us understand by importance.

“Seaweeds” may be of global importance as biofuels in the near future (see
handout) and seaweed gatherers harvest at the shoreline for meals. Seaweed
is also harvested intensively from the sea itself and managed as carefully as
many flowering plant crops. The equivalent of marine combine harvesters
harvest the tops of beautifully managed beds of seaweed [movie – kelp
harvesting, more in later lectures on this]. These are then processed to supply
many important materials. If you look at packages of food you will notice
many algal products – many yoghurts have "seaweed" in them. Toothpaste,
shampoo and paint contain algal extracts. Skin creams and similar products
contain alginates obtained from seaweeds, and algae generate far more
oxygen and fix far more carbon than any terrestrial plant group.

Much of this course is about changing the way you think about organisms.
Many, such as the algae, have been around for millions of years and are still
of critical importance to the both man and the environment and are still
proving useful to us [see the Tree of Life, the handout].

We will pay particular attention in this unit to such simpler life forms because,
despite the beautiful and efficient design of flowering plants like most of our
crops, and mammals like ourselves, they are the survivors of a truly
impressive struggle for survival.

2. Evolutionary time.

The front of the second page of the handout deals with something that you
are probably familiar with already, but if not, then at least there will be some
names of periods of time in this list with which you should be familiar. When
we see geological time compressed into eras, it is easy to assume that the
divisions of those different ages are roughly equal. [Table 25.1..NB you are
not expected to learn this!]. The very “small” period before the Cambrian (the
“pre-Cambrian” period) down at the bottom of the scale on the list is actually
the majority of time since the earth first formed. So another way to think about
it is to compress time into something that does mean something to all of us,
such as an hour of time. It took a while for the earth’s crust to settle down, but
once it did, it didn’t take long for life to arrive – less than 15 minutes into the
hour (more than 3,500 million years ago – NB textbook is USA, so uses term
“billion”). The Pre-Cambrian dominates the time - almost 50 minutes of the
hour, with 4 major evolutionary breakthroughs: 1. Origin of life (prokaryotes).
2. Atmospheric oxygen (from photosynthesis – see next lecture). 3. Origin of
eukaryotes. 4. Origin of multicellular eukaryotes.

As time goes on, we get to things that are slightly more familiar. Around the
start of the last 10 minutes (just 542 million years ago) is the Cambrian – the
start of the Paleozoic, when life forms were becoming complex and
diversifying, but still only in the water, not on dry land. At about 50 minutes
into the hour into which we have compressed evolutionary history, complex
life-forms made it out onto the dry land. [New Scientist 8 th June 2002, 39-
41“Invasion Earth” ]
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg17423463.900-invasion-earth.html
[more about this in later lectures and on eLearning] [citations of this type are
the “extra” reading. They are seldom more than 3 pages, usually far less, and
they usually update, sometimes expand on the lecture notes/textbook. You
should be able to access the full text electronically via the link provided if you
are using a computer on Campus – you DON’T need to subscribe to the
journal as the university has a subscription – so if you are off campus, please
install the VPN – see instructions on the announcement on BB and
http://www.itservices.manchester.ac.uk/vpn/]

Then things really started to happen “fast”. During the next 5 minutes, the
Paleozoic, life moved from being humble green smears on the surface to
huge trees in forests and animals as big and complex as crocodiles and
dinosaurs (Jurassic Park).
N.B. ee also http://www.newscientist.com/channel/life/mg18825274.400-dino-
droppings-reveal-prehistoric-taste-for-grass.html

The mammals arrived at the start of the Mesozoic – with about 3 minutes to
go of the hour; most of the angiosperms (the flowering plants) only arrived
about a minute and a half before the end of this 1 hour slot. We are therefore
most familiar with things that have only been around a very short time.
Compared with us, more or less everything else has been around a long time
– according to most scientists’ interpretation of fossil evidence, humans only
come in during the last part of the last second of this hour that is evolutionary
time.

Origins of Life. This topic overlaps with “From Molecules to Cells” and
“Microbes Man & the Environment” so will only be covered briefly here. This
field is itself evolving very fast. There are two main possibilities for where life
on earth arose –

1. Extra-terrestrial e.g. see “Life came from Mars theory survives

pressure test” New Scientist 27 Jan 2007 p17
http://space.newscientist.com/article/mg19325885.200-life-came-from-
mars-theory-survives-pressure-test.html; Meteorites – toolkits for
creating life on earth ScienceDaily August 8 2011
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110808152227.htm;
and Martian clay contains chemical implicated in the origin of life,
astrobiologists find ScienceDaily June 10, 2013
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/06/130610220132.htm

2. Here on earth. (Marine, freshwater, or in hydrothermal vents?).

The textbook describes the Miller Urey experiment you may have covered
before. If you didn’t, don’t bother now [you are not expected to know about it
for this unit]. It is interesting that the caption [4.2] explaining this experiment
equates a warmed flask of pure water with the primeval “sea”. Primitive
cellular membranes assemble far more easily in fresh than in salt water.

Another possibility is that first life arose in hydrothermal vents - hot springs
deep in the ocean;. [more of this in some of the “Additional movies” already on
BB and in later lectures].

Lastly, to learn about the organisms in this unit we will need to agree on
names. The only taxonomic distinctions you need to understand for this unit
are names I give you. The textbook provides far more, and if you are doing
“Genes, Evolution & Development” you might want to read Chapter 25 & 26 to
see how these 2 units complement each other. Arranging biodiversity into
taxa is a “work in progress”. If you did “A” level, you probably learned about
“5 kingdoms”: Prokaryotae, Protoctista, Fungi, Plantae, Animalia but very few
modern scientists accept these divisions. [See handout]

Few workers disagree that there are two distinct lines of evolution in
prokaryotes – so to keep things as simple as possible we will use just 3
domains: Bacteria, Archaea and Eukarya [handout; see also 26.21]. After
that, the way you break down clades into smaller subdivisions changes almost
weekly and gets very controversial, so try not to worry about it. After all,
Linnaeus did pretty well with just 2 groups of organisms – plants and animals!

BIOL10511Lecture Key learning outcomes Key words

Perspective of Prokaryote
1 evolutionary time and
history. Eukaryote

Perspective of Algae
organismal abundance,
importance and Domain
diversity .
Bacteria

Archaea

Eukarya

At the end of each set of notes I will include some questions on one of the
topics I covered in the lecture for you to discuss, with fellow students, or in
your PASS sessions when they start...if you have questions, why not post
them on the Discussion Board?

Questions for (PASS) discussion:

1. When and why are scientific names of things important?

2. Which is more important to get right, the name of the domain an organism
is in, or the binomial name (e.g. Homo sapiens). Why?