BIOL 102 HUMANS in NATURE

BIOL 102 HUMANS in NATURE Spring 2012 Neil Greenberg O

Domains of INTEGRATIVE BIOLOGY • Description • Development • Ecology • Evolution • Physiology

DESCRIBE The DESCRIPTION is not the DESCRIBED … I can describe the mountain, but the description is not the mountain … Jiddu Krishnamurti

DESCRIBE The structures –from cells to systems to body form that act in the world and populations and integrated systems can be DESCRIBED • There is no understanding or explanation here, only raw empirical description. • LEVEL of organization: defined by traits “above” and “below” target of interest: • Of what “smaller” units of biological concern is the trait composed – what are its constituents • To what units of biological concern does it contribute ?

DESCRIBE The structures –from cells to systems to body form that act in the world and populations and integrated systems can be DESCRIBED • There is no understanding or explanation here, only raw empirical description. • The genetic “genotype” (genes and gene clusters) • Cytology, Anatomy . . . • The structural “phenotype” (internal and external morphology) • The behavioral “ethogram” (units of behavior, behavioral patterns) • The sociobiological “memes” (ideas, “units of cultural inheritance”)

Development CHANGES within an individual LIFETIME • Ontogeny: The delicate stages requiring great stability occurs in a protected environment (egg, womb) • Experience: The flexible stage that must adjust to the vagaries of a less protected environment (the world with which one must cope) • ?? How do cells (or parts of cells) COMMUNICATE with each other and influence an individual’s growth?? • ??what is EPIGENESIS??

Ecology • The ecosystem, internal and external environment • ABIOTIC: geology, climate . . . • BIOTIC: predators, prey, conspecifics: family, tribe, population . . . • ?? How do organisms and their environments COMMUNICATE with each other and influence growth?? (including “how does epigenesis work?”)

ECOLOGYrevisited • The environment is the context in which the organism is born develops, prospers, and dies. • It also epigenetically structures what we can and cannot know or understand, in a sense we are inseparable from the environment –we are in it and it is within us, the interstices of our brains . . . It is the matrix in which we are embedded . . . • It informs our brains of what is or is not (or can or cannot) be “real.” • There is manifest reality (what we see) and latent reality (what lies beneath the surface and cannot be directly known). • Art enlarges our capacity to understand the latent possibilities of our worlds

ECOLOGY • The environment in which the organism is born develops, prospers, and dies. • Context of life: internal (the milieu interieur) and external (climate and geology) • It is the source of the selection pressures which “edit” traits (“natural selection”) the contribute to an individual or population’s “fitness” • The environment “drives” adaptive change in organisms. Adaptations are traits that contribute to fitness (direct and indirect)

EVOLUTION: CHANGE across GENERATIONS:DESCENT WITH MODIFICATION (DARWINIAN EVOLUTION) • The ultimate cause and consequences of traits are explored in evolutionary biology • Darwin’s observations and insights • ??How have previous generations coped with their environments to manifested fitness?? • ??How will our generation cope with our environment and manifest fitness?? ... Future generations?

EVOLUTION Observation: Overproduction [individuals tend to produce as many offspring as possible] Observation: Stability[population size seems to remain stable from generation to generation in stable environments] Observation: Limited resources [there is not enough for everyone] • Inference: Struggle for existence (competition? Cooperation?) Observation: Variability[offspring manifest varying traits] Observation: Heritability [traits are to some extent inherited] • Inference: inherited traits contribute to enhanced fitness (production of more offspring than other individuals)] =natural selection • Inference: differential survival of advantageous traits= evolution enhanced fitness over many generations lead to changes in the frequencies of genes that code for those traits (=evolution)

EVOLUTION: what is transmitted between generations ... From ancestors,? to descendants? • Genetics:Genes are biological units of inheritance. • Alleles are alternate forms of genes. • The “program” by which they are translated into manifest “phenotype” can be “open” or “closed” • with respect to the influence of the environment. Most traits are “polygenic,” most genes are “pleiotropic.” • Memetics: Memes are “socially transmitted “cultural” units of inheritance” such as words, ideas fashions . . . • Epigenetics: interaction of genes and environment: what “turns genes on & off”?

Domains of INTEGRATIVE BIOLOGY • Morphology • Development • Ecology • Evolution • Physiology

PHYSIOLOGY • The proximate causation of behavior. • Requires a stabile milieu interieurmaintained by homeostasis –the dynamic balance of multiple systems • Neurology: Central and peripheral nervous systems • Endocrinology: The glands and hormones that are coordinated by the nervous system but also feed back to affect the nervous system • ?? How do internal structures of organisms COMMUNICATE with each other and influence how the organism as a whole copes with challenges such as change??

Physiology • Proximate ... Ultimate aspects of • Neurobiology (molecules to consciousness) • Endocrinology (molecules to organism) Major integrative systems: AFFECT – MOTIVATION -- COGNITION INPUT – INTEGRATION – OUTPUT ...of information that guides development

PHYSIOLOGY UNMET NEEDS evoke a coordinated ensemble of physiological responses called “STRESS” STRESS is evoked at different levels “SUBCLINICAL” affects organism without causing health difficulties, but behavior can change CLINICAL STRESS can affect an organism in emergency or in the long run … either way, collateral effects of coping can be harmful to the organism if stress cannot create or evoke a better way of coping with the (real or perceived) stressor (selection pressure).

From fetus to senility, ORGANISMS are in constant flux • From the beginning to the end of time, ENVIRONMENTS are in constant flux At the point where these two changes intersect, we must meet our needs to survive and prosper with the resources available to us. We are here because our ancestors succeeded.

NEEDS THAT MUST BE MET translated into biological terms

NEEDS may be REAL or PERCEIVED(can you always distinguish needs from wants?) REAL or PERCEIVED FAILURE TO MEET NEEDS LEADS TOSTRESS

BIOL 102 HUMANS in NATURE