Life: the Natural World / Berg Spring 2011

Life: The Natural World / Berg Spring 2011

STUDY GUIDE, TEST 3 You should know about where plants important to us have come from, and their historical and cultural importance. Come up with examples and trade them with your friends.

1. What are key characteristics of biomes, and why do they have the vegetation they do? What are the major similarities and differences between them? 2. What are the main types of forest, and what characterizes them? 3. Why do some areas have deciduous leaves, while other plants are evergreen? How long do evergreen leaves last? 4. Why are productivity, plant spacing and plant type different, when comparing biomes? 5. Contrast and compare evergreen vs. deciduous, annual vs. perennial: where do we find them and why, and what are advantages and disadvantages of each for the plant?

6. Why are toxins concentrated in organisms “high” on the food chain? 7. What did Rachel Carson do that changed our view of nature? 8. How do plants, animals and burning fossil fuel control the amount of CO2 and O2 in the atmosphere, and why do changes in CO2 have us concerned? 9. How does science work, compared to other ways of finding out about things? 10. Be able to set up and interpret a simple scientific experiment (like drug testing).

11. Who are some famous doctors of ancient times, and what did they do? 12. What is the doctrine of signatures, and why don’t we use it in modern scientific medicine? 13. What are some famous plants that give us medicines against cancer, burns, headaches, malaria, etc.? 14. Why do plants make our medicines? 15. Why did early hunters who ate most meat and fish still need to gather plants?

16. What is the relationship between sugars and complex carbohydrates? Give examples of both. 17. How is grain protein not well-matched to human protein needs, and how can you get around this? 18. How did traditional Native Americans solve the niacin problem presented by a corn-based diet? (book) 19. How hunter-gatherers (foragers) got their food, what the food was, and how this affected their culture. 20. How herders live (in terms of food and culture). Compare with hunter-gatherers & farmers.

21. The changes (biological and social) associated with the switch to agriculture. 22. Differences between wild and domesticated grains. 23. How agricultural plants depend on humans, and how humans depend on agricultural plants. 24. Where and when (very approximately) did agriculture begin, and what crops were involved? 25. Why do plants make seeds? What is the advantage of having them dispersed?

26. What are the three key parts of seeds and what do they do for the future plant? 27. What are some ways seeds are carried by wind? by animals? 28. From the perspective of a biologist, what is a fruit, and how is it different from a seed or a vegetable? 29. What are some examples of where ordinary English use has put fruits, nuts and vegetables into categories that are not the biological ones? 30. What are some important foods we obtain from grasses?

31. What are advantages and disadvantages of white (processed) flour or rice, compared to whole grain? 32. What are the roles of the following in making bread: gluten, flour, yeast, CO2? 33. What is different about corn, compared to most grain plants? 34. What products do we get from corn? 35. How does hybrid corn seed get made?

36. What are other economically important grasses? Where are they from and what are they used for? 37. What are some special characteristics of legumes? Examples and what they give us (not just foods)? 38. Why do we get so much dietary starch from plants? (Why do the plants make so much?) 39. Where do plants put their starch? (Examples) 40. How have potatoes been significant in world history?

41. Why are potatoes so good for you? How are they grown? 42. How are sweet potatoes, Irish (white) potatoes and yams related to each other? 43. Why do yams make sex hormones? Will they work for us as birth control?