Biology 102 Study Guide for the Final Exam

Reread the first page of the syllabus for what we are trying to accomplish in this course.  "ST" below refers to your text by Starr & Taggart

The final exam is worth 75 points towards your final grade.  Approximately 1/3 (25 points) will cover material covered since the second midterm exam in detail;  approximately 2/3 (50 points) will be comprehensive, but see what I want you to focus on below.

Student grading record note:  Late on Monday, 3/15/04 I will post, outside the lab, a student roster with grades from lecture & lab so far and an indication of your present letter grade position.  I will hold Office Hours next week MW 10-11.

The first part (material covered since the second midterm):

  1. Features describing and defining the deuterostome animal phyla covered: echinoderms, chordates
  2. The different kinds of echinoderms -- sea stars, sea urchins and sand dollars, brittle stars, sea lilies, sea cucumbers
  3. Features describing and defining the two lower chordate groups -- tunicates, lancelets and the remaining chordates, the vertebrate classes -- jawless fish, cartilaginous fish, bony fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals
  4. Relative timing of these evolutionary events involving animals:  first chordate, first vertebrate, first land vertebrate, first amniotic egg, first mammal, first species in the genus Homo (see online version of timeline for all these if you missed the latest additions)
  5. How did Continental Drift and any other geological events (including such things as extraterrestrial collisions) effect the evolution of the vertebrates?
  6. Material from lecture on the Theory of Natural Selection, Darwin's life and the evidence upon which he based the theory
  7. Details of phylum Chordata, class Reptiles from the video on reptiles from the Life On Earth series
  8. Main points of human evolution covered in lecture (not every last detail from assigned reading)
  9. The last two chapters of Wilson's "Future of Life", stressing his solutions to the biodiversity loss problem.  Much of the topics covered in Wilson's book are discussed in ST, Ch 27.  Please read that chapter.
  10. On Friday, 3/12, I showed a brief presentation (ppt file is here ) on my early involvement in studying Old-Growth Canopy habitat in western Oregon.  You are responsible for the following main messages from this:  a) the canopy of an old growth conifer is a unique habitat populated with representative organisms from many phyla, 2) one lichen, Lobaria oregana, is a pivotal species because it fixes nitrogen, 3) this nitrogen is shared by other organisms in the canopy and in the forest and ultimately helps support the forest trees and the top carnivore in the forest, the Northern Spotted Owl, who's existence is threatened by habitat destruction
The comprehensive part:
  1. There will be a set of slide (Powerpoint) identification questions, arranged in two parts:
    1. A. Phylum/group recognition - name the kingdom and/or "group" (phylum or "life style") from this list of six kingdoms, phyla and "groups":  eubacteria, archaebacteria, bluegreen bacteria, amoeboid protozoa, ciliated protozoa, brown, red and green seaweeds, diatoms, yeasts, molds, ascomycota, basidiomycota, lichen, mosses, ferns, conifers, cycads, Gnetophytes, flowering plants, sponges, Cnidarians, flat worms, round worms, molluscs, insects, crustaceans, echinoderms, lancelets, sea squirts, jawless fish, cartilaginous fish, bony fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals
      B. More info - For each, answer another question about the organism - such questions as:  What is its skeleton made of?, Does this plant produce seeds?, How big are the cells of this organism? What is an economic benefit of this organism?, Telling me something else about this organism (other than what I have already described)., etc.
  2. Evolutionary connections between the kingdoms Bacteria, Protista, Animals, Plants and Fungi.  i.e., from what ancestral group in what kingdom did each kingdom develop evolutionarily and what was the change that led to the new kingdom (i.e. what characteristic(s) separate(s) the Fungi from the Protista, etc.)
  3. Absolute dates that define these eras of geological time:  Archaean, Proterozoic, Paleozoic, Mesozoic and Cenozoic.  See our timeline handout or the Berkeley Time Machine
  4. Relative timing (the approximate order - some of these happened about the same time) and absolute timing (approximately when within the major eras) of the major evolutionary changes in life forms:  first organism, first oxygen-releasing photosynthesis, first eukaryote, first animal, first land plant, first fungus, first shelled animal (and see list 4., under detailed part above)
  5. Major trends of evolution within each of the kingdoms
  6. Review your notes on coevolutionary relationships of organisms in all kingdoms - be able to give examples of at least three such relationships (including symbiosis - mutualism and parasitism - and less "strict" relationships like the coevolution of pollination of flowering plants by insects)
If you have any questions about what I am referring to here, please bring them up in lecture or email me  (fredr@cc.wwu.edu )Finals week, I will be in my office MW 10-11 or by appointment.

Sample Final Questions