BIOL 1011 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Lobelia Cardinalis, Mitosis, Accessory Pigment
20 Aug 2018
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lecture 1
Reading: Ch. 29
Plants and colonisation of land
- Importance of plants
- Botany, the study of plants
- What is a plant?
- Ancestors of land plants
- Land plants, the embryophyta
- Life cycles
Agriculture
Invented 10 000 years ago in Mesopotamia (now Iraq)
Definition
Domestication of plants and animals
Previously, people would travel, looking for food (animals or plants)
Result: limited number of children, limits the division of labor
Consequences of agriculture
Allowed people to stand still, become sedentary
Positive consequences:
• Permanent villages, towns & cities
• Larger family, creating larger population
• Diverse economy
• Less cooperation among members of the community
Less positive consequences:
• Socioeconomic classes
• Separation of humans from rest of nature
• Large-scale war
Didn’t exist until sedimentary societies
Agriculture is based on plants
even the animals we domesticate feed on plants
Quote by Charles Darwin
Hence a traveler should be a botanist, for in all view plants form the chief embellishment
= you can tell where you are in the planet if you know about plants
: pasture and cropland around the world
lecture 1
Importance of plants
The plants make up most of everything in the world
Examples:
Chocolate
Scientific name: Theobroma cacao
Chocolate is taken from the seeds
Seeds come from fruits
Fruits come from the flower of the plant the flower of the plant
Each flower can potentially
Transportation
From the power of petroleum
Petroleum is plant material (phytoplankton)
That plant material was compressed and heated =turned into gas, natural gas
In this example, gasoline
All fossil fuels used to be plants
Rubber
Rubber tree: heavea brasiliensis(from brezil)
- How it’s made:
o Cut the tree
o Latex comes out
o Balkanization: made into firm rubber
Now made partially synthetically and partially from the rubber tree
Clothing
Some are made of Cotton
Plant’s scientifict name: gossypium spp.
Cotton is made of cellulose
the most abundant organic compound on earth
A polymer (chain of similar molecules)
Drugs
Are secondary compounds to the plant
Made from something that comes out of plants a manner of protection
Has nothing to do with their metabolism
Use to ward of virus, insects, bacteria, vertebrae
Insects are the most common predator of plants
- Caffeine
Plant’s scientific name: Coffea Arabica (Yemen, Ethiopia)
From coffee seeds, that are in the fruit
Each fruit has one seed
lecture 1
The drug (caffeine) is not essential for the plant – not required = secondary compound
Aspirin
Scientific name for aspirin: Acetylsalicylic acid
Made from a certain willow species: genus Salix
Occurs under the bark of willow trees and shrubs
Used for: pain, fever, inflammation
- Harish or Marijuana
Scientific name of the plant: Cannabis stativa
= active ingredient in marijuana ^ (THC)
used to keep certain insects from eating it
- Nicotine
from the plant: Nicotiana tabacum (Tobacco)
leaves are dryed and contain nicotine
flowering plant
- Opium, heroin, morphine, codeine
opium poppy: papaver
latex comes out of it
effects on human: numbing (pain relief), sleep, constipation
used in the medical world: morphine, codeine – considered the most important drugs
non-medical world: heroin, opium
- Taxol
From yew (find of plant): Taxus
Grows outside people’s home
Used for cancer treatment - chemotherapy for ovarian, breast, lung…
Does not have berries, they are cones (like a pine cone)
Hoh forest
The basic of energy for any ecosystem on land:
They do photosynthesis = makes oxygen
They also make the energy = when animals eat them they get the energy
= Importance of plants
1. Energy: food (agriculture)
2. Energy: fossil fuels
3. Clothing
4. Drugs, medicines
5. Ecosystem functioning
6. Biodiversity
Document Summary
Invented 10 000 years ago in mesopotamia (now iraq) Previously, people would travel, looking for food (animals or plants) Result: limited number of children, limits the division of labor. Positive consequences: permanent villages, towns & cities, larger family, creating larger population, diverse economy, less cooperation among members of the community. Less positive consequences: socioeconomic classes, separation of humans from rest of nature, large-scale war. Didn"t exist until sedimentary societies even the animals we domesticate feed on plants. Hence a traveler should be a botanist, for in all view plants form the chief embellishment. = you can tell where you are in the planet if you know about plants lecture 1. The plants make up most of everything in the world. Fruits come from the flower of the plant the flower of the plant. That plant material was compressed and heated =turned into gas, natural gas. How it"s made: cut the tree, latex comes out, balkanization: made into firm rubber.
