The term biology
was coined in the late
1700s by the French
naturalists
Pierre-Antoine de Monet
and Jean-Baptiste de
Lamarck. It is the
science of
life: Of the
composition and behavior
of living things, of
their interactions with
each other and their
environment.
Biologists
study life over a wide
range of scales:
-
at the atomic and
molecular scale,
through
molecular biology,
biochemistry and
genetics (study of
organic molecules,
their structures,
properties and
interactions)
-
at the cellular scale,
through
cell biology
-
at the multicellular
scale, through
physiology and
histology
-
at the level of the
population of
organisms, in
population genetics
-
on the multi-species
scale of
lineages, through
systematics
(comparison and
classification of
living organisms),
anatomy,
ontogeny, and
ethology (behavior
and adaptability)
-
to the top of the
scale,
ecology (study of
ecosystems,
interactions between
living
organisms and their
environment)
One the central,
organizing concepts in
biology is that all life
has descended from a
common origin though a
process of
evolution.
Charles Darwin was
the first to rigorously
argue this idea, which he
did with his proposal of
natural selection as
an evolutionary
mechanism. The
evolutionary history of a
species, i.e., the
characteristics of the
species from which it
descended, is called the
phylogeny of the
species; it is studied
using methods of
molecular biology by
analyzing biopolymer
sequences of
genes and
proteins, and by
investigating ancient
forms of life in
paleontology. Various
methodologies have been
developed, including
phylogenetics,
phenetics, and
cladistics. An
evolutionary timeline
outlining the major
events in the evolution
of life on Earth is
available.
The classification of
living things is called
systematics, or
taxonomy, and should
reflect the evolutionary
trees (phylogenetic
trees) of the
different organisms.
Taxonomy piles up
organisms in groups
called
taxa, while
systematics seeks their
relationships. The
dominant system is called
Linnaean taxonomy,
which includes ranks and
binomial nomenclature.
How organisms are named
is governed by
international agreements
such as the
International Code of
Botanical Nomenclature[?]
(ICBN), the
International Code of
Zoological Nomenclature
(ICZN), and the
International Code of
Nomenclature of
Bacteria[?] (ICNB). A
fourth Draft BioCode was
published in 1997 in an
attempt to standardize
naming in the three
areas, but it does not
appear to have yet been
formally adopted. The
International Code of
Virus Classification and
Nomenclature[?] (ICVCN)
remains outside the
BioCode.
Traditionally, living
things were divided into
five kingdoms:
-
Monera
--
Protista --
Fungi --
Plantae --
Animalia
However, this
five-kingdom system is
now considered by many to
be outdated, and if one
does not want to
hyperinflate the number
of kingdoms, one can use
the
three-domain system.
These domains reflect
whether cells have nuclei
or not as well as
differences in cell
membranes / cell walls.
-
Archaea
--
Eubacteria --
Eukaryota
The distinction between
life and non-life is
difficult, there is also
a series of intracellular
"parasites"
that are progressively
less alive in terms of
being
metabolically active:
-
Viruses
--
Viroids --
Prions
Major Branches of Biology
-
Aerobiology
--
Anatomy --
Astrobiology --
Biochemistry --
Bionics --
Biogeography --
Bioinformatics --
Biophysics--
Biotechnology --
Botany --
Cell biology --
Chorology --
Cladistics --
Cytology --
Developmental biology
--
Ecology (Symbiology[?],
Autecology[?])--
Ethology --Entomology--
Evolution
(Evolutionary biology)
--
Evolutionary
developmental biology
("Evo-devo" or
Evolution of
Development) --
Freshwater Biology
--
Genetics (Population
genetics,
Quantitative
genetics[?],
Genomics,
Proteomics) --
Histology --
Immunology --
Infectious diseases
--
Pathology --
Epidemiology --
Limnology --
Marine biology --
Microbiology (Bacteriology)
--
Molecular Biology
--
Morphology --
Mycology /
Lichenology --
Neuroscience --
Oncology (the study
of cancer) --
Ontogeny --
Paleontology (Palaeobotany[?],
Palaezoology[?])--
Phycology (Algology)
--
Phylogeny (Phylogenetics,
Phylogeography[?])
--
Physiology --
Phytopathology --
Structural biology
--
Taxonomy --
Toxicology (the
study of poisons and
pollution) --
Virology --
Zoology
Related Disciplines
-
Medicine
--
Physical anthropology
People and History
-
Famous
biologists
--
History of biology[?]
--
Nobel prize in
physiology or medicine
--
Timeline of biology and
organic chemistry
What are our priorities
for writing in this area?
To help develop a list of
the most basic topics in
Biology, please see
Biology basic topics.
On
the Web
Books
-
Lynn Margulis: Five
Kingdoms: An
Illustrated Guide to
the Phyla of Life on
Earth, 3rd ed., W
H Freeman & Co 1998.
-
Neil Campbell:
Biology: Concepts and
Connections, 3rd
ed., Benjamin/Cummings
2000. A college-level
textbook.
