Biology is designed for multi-semester biology courses for science majors. It is grounded on an evolutionary basis and includes exciting features that highlight careers in the biological sciences and everyday applications of the concepts at hand. To meet the needs of today’s instructors and students, some content has been strategically condensed while maintaining the overall scope and coverage of traditional texts for this course. Instructors can customize the book, adapting it to the approach that works best in their classroom. Biology also includes an innovative art program that incorporates critical thinking and clicker questions to help students understand—and apply—key concepts.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:Describe representative protist organisms from each of the six presently recognized supergroups of eukaryotesIdentify the evolutionary relationships of plants, animals, and fungi within the six presently recognized supergroups of eukaryotes

In this activity, student teams identify the locations of coral reefs around the world, examine infrared satellite images of the Earth, and research the impacts that are threatening the survival of coral reefs. Each team creates a short oral presentation describing the coral reef they have researched. Students then plot on a composite map the locations where coral bleaching is occurring. Student worksheets, a teacher guide, and assessment rubric are included. This activity is part of Coastal Areas: Coral Reefs in Hot Water, part of the lesson series, The Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Oceanic microbiomes are critical to the global carbon cycle and to oceanic carbon and energy cycling, and the Deltaproteobacteria clade SAR324 is one of the few microbial groups inhabiting all oceanic depth zones. Although the metabolic potential of dark-zone SAR324 has been investigated, the ecology and metabolic traits of euphotic- and twilight-zone SAR324 remain unclear. To learn more, a recent study collected SAR324 from various depths of the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre. A pangenomic analysis including published genomic data revealed considerable intra-clade diversity, as indicated by the average nucleotide identity (ANI). The bacteria clustered into four ecotypes with different spatiotemporal distributions, and bacteria at different depths had different metabolic characteristics. The deep- and twilight-zone bacteria exhibited genomic and metabolic traits consistent with sulfur-based chemolithoautotrophy..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Microbial interactions play a crucial role in the functioning and biogeochemical cycling of Earth's ecosystem. But these connections are highly dynamic and poorly understood. A clear picture of how microbes interact over time could help gain insight into processes that influence nutrient cycling, productivity, and the overall health of marine ecosystems. Researchers investigated microbial dynamics in the Mediterranean Sea on a monthly basis over 10 years. To pinpoint persistent, seasonal, and temporary microbial associations, the researchers identified a temporal network capturing the interactomes of each sample. This network followed an annual cycle that collapsed and reassembled with changes in water temperature. And microbial associations were more repeatable in colder versus warmer months. However, only 16 associations could be validated in the literature, underlining a serious knowledge gap in marine microbial ecological interactions..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"When scientists want to understand microbial populations, they turn to metagenomics. The standard technique, shotgun metagenomics, produces nearly complete genomes, enabling researchers to predict traits within a species. Unfortunately, this method applies to broad populations, making it difficult to precisely link metabolic traits to individual species. Sequencing single cells addresses this shortcoming, but the information provided is often incomplete. Now, researchers have developed a way to target smaller populations for metagenomic sequencing. Before sequencing, the researchers added a critical sorting step using hybridization chain reaction fluorescence in-situ hybridization (HCR-FISH). Isolating a population of interest before the sorted cells were used for shotgun sequencing. The result was a more complete genome of a targeted species with low diversity. The technique provided the team enough precision to analyze metabolic features of bacteria sparsely found feeding on decaying diatom algae..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:Describe representative protist organisms from each of the six presently recognized supergroups of eukaryotesIdentify the evolutionary relationships of plants, animals, and fungi within the six presently recognized supergroups of eukaryotes

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Phytoplankton communities play major roles in global biogeochemical cycles and marine food webs. However, the complex phytoplankton communities in polar vs. non-polar oceans haven’t been well characterized. To address this gap, researchers recently profiled the metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs) of eukaryotic microbes and associated prokaryotes from the chlorophyll A maximum layer at 11 sites in the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans. Within each ocean, adjacent sampling sites had 51–88% of their MAGs in common, but the Arctic and Atlantic MAGs were clearly differentiated. Most species associations were between Prasinophytes and Proteobacteria. In addition, eukaryotic MAGs were more diverse in the Arctic, while prokaryotic MAGs were more diverse in the Atlantic. For both prokaryotes and eukaryotes, 70% of the detected protein families were shared between Arctic and Atlantic MAGs. but eukaryotic MAGs had more Arctic-only protein families, whereas prokaryotic MAGs had more Atlantic-only protein families..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Every year, over 9 million metric tons of plastic waste enter the ocean and can harm its ecosystems. When it comes to marine microbes, most of the current research has focused on those that directly colonize the plastic particles. But plastic also leaches chemical additives into the water, which could impact planktonic microbes as well. So, researchers tested the impact of leachate from polyvinyl chloride (PVC), a common plastic, and zinc, a plastic additive, on a natural planktonic community. Some microorganisms, including both bacteria and eukaryotes, were impaired by exposure to plastic leachates. Photosynthetic microorganisms, the base of the food web, were particularly strongly affected, showing declines in photosynthetic efficiency, diversity, and abundance. Other important and normally highly abundant bacterial groups were also negatively impacted. In contrast, microorganisms that thrive in nutrient-rich environments, copiotrophs, dramatically increased in relative abundance..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This video features the remarkable discovery Jonathan made in 1998 about Basking sharks, the second largest fish on Earth. While diving with Basking sharks in the frigid waters of the Bay of Fundy, Jonathan saw parasitic lampreys on the backs of the sharks. This had never before been documented, so he returned the next year with a shark biologist and a lamprey biologist to attempt to recover living lampreys from the backs of Basking sharks. They didn't think Jonathan could do it. Wait until you see what happens! Please see the accompanying lesson plan for educational objectives, discussion points and classroom activities.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Oceans connect all life and affect climate worldwide, and interestingly, the ocean’s smallest residents have a huge role in this process. The ocean microbiota modulates global biogeochemical cycles, which influences energy balance in the atmosphere. Unfortunately, the underlying factors structuring the ocean microbiota are unclear, and better understanding is needed to help combat the effects of global climate change. A recent study examined the ecological mechanisms shaping the smallest surface-ocean microbiota: prokaryotes and picoeukaryotes. Researchers identified patterns in DNA sequencing data collected by two global ocean expeditions, Malaspina-2010 and Tara Oceans. Their results showed that different ecological mechanisms affect prokaryotes vs. picoeukaryotes. While picoeukaryotes were largely structured by dispersal limitation, displaying higher differentiation between communities, prokaryotes were structured by a combination of temperature-driven selection, dispersal limitation and random drift..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

In this video, Jonathan travels to Holbox, Mexico in search of the massive whale shark‰ŰÓthe world‰ŰŞs largest fish. Reaching 50 feet long, these animals grow larger than a school bus, but they are completely harmless since they eat only plankton and small fish. Jonathan gets up close and personal to a mouth the size of a small car in his investigation to discover why so many whale sharks visit Holbox every summer. Please see the accompanying study guide for educational objectives and discussion points.

They have big, sharp teeth, long eel-like bodies, and they look like they could bite your fingers right off‰ŰÓbut Jonathan can pet them. They‰ŰŞre Wolffish, and in this video Jonathan visits both Atlantic and Pacific species. You won‰ŰŞt believe the amazing encounters he has with these friendly but mean-looking fish. Please see the accompanying study guide for educational objectives and discussion points.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Fresh water flows from rivers to estuaries and then to the sea, creating a salinity gradient as it meets the salt water of the ocean. While this salinity gradient is likely to have profound effects on the organisms that call these habitats home, its impact on microbial communities is far from clear. To fill this gap, researchers recently used genomic, transcriptomic, and geochemical data to examine microbial variation in both benthic and planktonic environments along a river-to-sea continuum. They observed a distinct increase in osmoregulation-related gene expression with increasing salinity and noted a prevalence of phosphate-acquisition activities among microorganisms inhabiting the freshwater zone, likely resulting from phosphate limitation, while carbon-, nitrogen-, and sulfur-cycling processes became dominant in brackish water, due to higher nutrient levels. In these brackish waters, photosynthesis was mainly conducted by cryptomonads in the water column and diatoms in the sediment..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.