Colegio Gimnasio Campestre San Sebastin

FIRST
BODY PARTS

SENSES

SECOND
FLOWERING REPRODUCTION POLLINATION Flowering plants use the wind, insects, bats, birds and mammals to transfer pollen from the male (stamen) part of the flower to the female (stigma) part of the flower. PARTS OF A FLOWER Sepals protect the bud until it opens. Petals attract insects. Stamens make pollen. Carpels grow into fruits which contain the seeds. FERTILISATION Pollen grains germinate on the stigma, growing down the style to reach an ovule. Fertilised ovules develop into seeds. The carpel enlarges to form the flesh of the fruit and to protect the ovary. WIND POLLINATION Some flowers, such as grasses, do not have brightly coloured petals and nectar to attract insects. They do have stamens and carpels. These flowers are pollinated by the wind. SEED DISPERSAL Seeds are dispersed in many different ways: Wind Explosion Water Animals Birds Scatter

PLANTS REPRODUCTION

Plant Reproduction Sexual reproduction in plants occurs when the pollen from an anther is transferred to the stigma. Plants can fertilize themselves: called self-fertilization. Self-fertilization occurs when the pollen from an anther fertilizes the eggs on the same flower. Cross-fertilization occurs when the pollen is transferred to the stigma of an entirely different plant. When the ovules are fertilized, they will develop into seeds. The petals of the flower fall off leaving only the ovary behind, which will develop into a fruit. There are many different kinds of fruits, including apples and oranges and peaches. A fruit is any structure that encloses and protects a seed, so fruits are also "helicopters" and acorns, and bean pods. When you eat a fruit, you are actually eating the ovary of the flower.

THIRD
ECOSYSTEMS
An ecosystem is all the things that interact in a specific area, whether they are living, or non-living. Some examples of non-living things that support life in an ecosystem are light, air, soil, and water. Living things are the organisms (plants and animals) that use those resources. Each of the specific ecosystems in the world has its own conditions created by the non-living things. These conditions determine what kinds of living things will be able to thrive there. Organisms can only thrive where their needs are being met. Everything in an organisms environment has an effect on it. A temperate zone is an area where the conditions never become too hot or too cold, allowing many different kinds of organisms to thrive. All the living things in an ecosystem are called a community. All of one specific kind of organism living in a community is called a population. All the tree frogs in a rainforest community are one population within the community. All the white birch trees are another population within the same community.

RAINFOREST

Sand covers only about 20 percent of the Earth's deserts. Most of the sand is in sand sheets and sand seas-vast regions of undulating dunes resembling ocean waves "frozen" in an instant of time. Nearly 50 percent of desert surfaces are plains where eolian deflation--removal of fine-grained material by the wind--has exposed loose gravels consisting predominantly of pebbles but with occasional cobbles. The remaining surfaces of arid lands are composed of exposed bedrock outcrops, desert soils, and fluvial deposits including alluvial fans, playas, desert lakes, and oases. Bedrock outcrops commonly occur as small mountains surrounded by extensive erosional plains. Soils Soils that form in arid climates are predominantly mineral soils with low organic content. The repeated accumulation of water in some soils causes distinct salt layers to form. Calcium carbonate precipitated from solution may cement sand and gravel into hard layers called "calcrete" that form layers up to 50 meters thick. Caliche is a reddish-brown to white layer found in many desert soils. Caliche commonly occurs as nodules or as coatings on mineral grains formed by the complicated interaction between water and carbon dioxide released by plant roots or by decaying organic material. Plants

Sparse, very dry, single-species vegetation in Death Vegetation amidst the desert pavement of the Sonoran Valley, California. Desert (Photograph by John Olsen.) Most desert plants are drought- or salt-tolerant. Some store water in their leaves, roots, and stems. Other desert plants have long tap roots that penetrate the water table, anchor the soil, and control erosion. The stems and leaves of some plants lower the surface velocity of sand-carrying winds and protect the ground from erosion. Deserts typically have a plant cover that is sparse but enormously diverse. The Sonoran Desert of the American Southwest has the most complex desert vegetation on Earth. The giant saguaro cacti provide nests

for desert birds and serve as "trees" of the desert. Saguaro grow slowly but may live 200 years. When 9 years old, they are about 15 centimeters high. After about 75 years, the cacti are tall and develop their first branches. When fully grown, saguaro are 15 meters tall and weigh as much as 10 tons. They dot the Sonoran and reinforce the general impression of deserts as cacti-rich land. Although cacti are often thought of as characteristic desert plants, other types of plants have adapted well to the arid environment. They include the pea family and sunflower family. Cold deserts have grasses and shrubs as dominant vegetation. Water Rain does fall occasionally in deserts, and desert storms are often violent. A record 44 millimeters of rain once fell within 3 hours in the Sahara. Large The Wei River in the Loess Plateau, China. (Photograph Saharan storms may deliver up to 1 millimeter per by I-Ming Chou.) minute. Normally dry stream channels, called arroyos or wadis, can quickly fill after heavy rains, and flash floods make these channels dangerous. More people drown in deserts than die of thirst. Though little rain falls in deserts, deserts receive runoff from ephemeral, or short-lived, streams fed by rain and snow from adjacent highlands. These streams fill the channel with a slurry of mud and commonly transport considerable quantities of sediment for a day or two. Although most deserts are in basins with closed, or interior drainage, a few deserts are crossed by 'exotic' rivers that derive their water from outside the desert. Such rivers infiltrate soils and evaporate large amounts of water on their journeys through the deserts, but their volumes are such that they maintain their continuity. The Nile, the Colorado, and the Yellow are exotic rivers that flow through deserts to dellver thelr sediments to the sea. Lakes form where rainfall or meltwater in interior drainage basins is sufficient. Desert lakes are generally shallow, temporary, and salty. Because these lakes are shallow and have a low bottom gradient, wind stress may cause the lake waters to move over many square kilometers. When small lakes dry up, they leave a salt crust or hardpan. The flat area of clay, silt, or sand encrusted with salt that forms is known as a playa. There are more than a hundred playas in North American deserts. Most are relics of large lakes that existed during the last Ice Age about 12,000 years ago. Lake Bonneville was a 52,000-square-kilometer lake almost 300 meters deep in Utah, Nevada, and Idaho during the Ice Age. Today the remnants of Lake Bonneville include Utah's Great Salt Lake, Utah Lake, and Sevier Lake. Because playas are arid land forms from a wetter past, they contain useful clues to climatic change.

DIFFERENT FOOD

FOURTH
ECOSYSTEMS

An ecosystem is all the things that interact in a specific area, whether they are living, or non-living. Some examples of non-living things that support life in an ecosystem are light, air, soil, and water. Living things are the organisms (plants and animals) that use those resources. Each of the specific ecosystems in the world has its own conditions created by the non-living things. These conditions determine

what kinds of living things will be able to thrive there. Organisms can only thrive where their needs are being met. Everything in an organisms environment has an effect on it. A temperate zone is an area where the conditions never become too hot or too cold, allowing many different kinds of organisms to thrive. All the living things in an ecosystem are called a community. All of one specific kind of organism living in a community is called a population. All the tree frogs in a rainforest community are one population within the community. All the white birch trees are another population within the same community.

ANIMALS CLASSIFICATION

FOOD CHAIN Every living thing needs energy in order to live. Everytime animals do something (run, jump) they use energy to do so. Animals get energy from the food they eat, and all living things get energy from food. Plants use sunlight, water and nutrients to get energy (in a process called photosynthesis). Energy is necessary for living beings to grow. A food chain shows how each living thing gets food, and how nutrients and energy are passed from creature to creature. Food chains begin with plant-life, and end with animal-life. Some animals eat plants, some animals eat other animals.

Here's another food chain, with a few more animals. It starts with acorns, which are eaten by mice. The mice are eaten by snakes, and then finally the snakes are eaten by hawks. At each link in the chain, energy is being transferred from one animal to another.

There can be even more links to any food chain. Here another animal is added. It goes Grass to grasshopper to mouse to snake to hawk.

FIFTH
CHARACTERISTICS OF ANIMAL REPRODUCTION Some newborn animals hatch from eggs. Many animals reproduce sexually in a process similar to human reproduction. However, the animal kingdom accommodates a wide range of variations on the cycle of conception, prenatal development and birth. For instance, humans take about 280 days to develop, while many birds take only 12

days, according to Your Veterinary Clinic, a veterinary center in the Netherlands. Some animals can even reproduce asexually Cell Division All animals employ some form of cell division to reproduce. Dr. Michael Gregory, a science professor at Clinton Community College in Plattsburgh, New York, says many worms can reproduce asexually by dividing into two halves, with each half becoming a separate individual. Simple marine animals called cnidarians produce "buds," small polyps that break off to form new beings. Other animals, including humans, reproduce by causing an egg cell to divide over and over again until thousands of cells form an embryo. Fertilization In sexual reproduction, each animal contributes a specialized sex cell called a gamete to the process of conception, Gregory notes. A male gamete, or sperm cell, typically enters a female gamete called an egg cell. Each gamete contains half of the parent's genetic information. The sperm and egg combine their genetic data to create a new individual with traits from each parent. Asexual reproduction, by contrast, simply duplicates the genetic information of the parent without fertilization from a second gamete. Reproductive Cycles In many animals, the natural cycles of day and night help to time reproductive behaviors, Gregory says. Many creatures' brains have a pineal gland that produces the hormone melatonin during periods of darkness or night. Melatonin inhibits reproductive hormones, meaning that reduced melatonin levels during longer daylight hours correspond to breeding seasons. Gestation During a period called gestation, the newly created embryo inside an egg grows and develops into a creature capable of surviving outside the egg, continuing its growth as a hatchling or infant. Different animals require different gestation periods. Animals often gestate inside their mother's body, contained either in the egg or in a sac called the placenta. Other animals, such as birds and lizards, may develop inside eggs exposed to the external environment. Birth As gestation concludes, the fully formed animal emerges. Birds must peck their way out of hard protective eggshells. Animals that hold their developing young inside their bodies must push the live young out of a birth canal. Some animals enjoy the protection of the mother inside a nest or other safe habitat, but others must fight for survival on their own. Baby sea turtles, for instance, must crawl from sandy beaches into the ocean or die, according to Florida's Broward County Sea Turtle Preservation Program.

Animal Reproduction Reproduction is one of the most characteristic features of living organisms. Life would not exist on Earth if plants and animals did not reproduce to make their offspring. By reproducing, a living organism can be sure that there is another individual of its kind to take its place when it dies. In this way a species of organism guarantees its survival.

How Animals Reproduce Animals can be grouped into those which give birth to living offspring and those which lay eggs that eventually hatch into offspring. Those animals which give birth to live offspring are called live-bearing or viviparous. Those animals which lay eggs are called egg-laying or oviparous. The difference is in the place where the offspring develops before it is born. Below is a table of the vertebrates which shows which groups are viviparous and which groups are oviparous. GROUP MAMMALS OVIPAROUS (Egg-layers) Only a few primitive egg-laying mammals exist. They live in Australia and New Guinea. e.g. VIVIPAROUS (Live-bearers) Nearly all mammals e.g. mouse, human, cat, dog, bear,

spiny anteater and duck-billed platypus. BIRDS REPTILES All birds. e.g. robin, penguin, parrot, sparrow and eagle. Most reptiles are egg-layers. e.g. crocodile, turtle and cobra. Nearly all. e.g. frog, toad and

kangaroo and dolphin. None Some lizards and snakes are livebearing. e.g. vipers. A few species of frogs living in South America and West Africa are livebearers. Quite a few species are live-bearers. e.g. sharks and guppies.

AMPHIBIANS

FISH

Most species. e.g. herring, salmon and trout.

PLANT REPRODUCTION If you are an organism, you will need to reproduce. Otherwise, there will be no more of your species and the species will die off. You may have heard of endangered animals. There are also endangered plants. These endangered species have very few individuals left and scientists/naturalists are working together to make sure the species don't become extinct.

We talked a little about reproduction when we discussed meiosis in the cells tutorials. Reproduction is one of two things. (1) One cell can split into two, giving you two identical cells. That type is asexual reproduction. (2) The second type is when two cells, each with half of the DNA needed, combine and create a living cell. That type is sexual reproduction. When plants hit a point in evolution, the second is the one that occurs more often.

receive

pollen

FLOWERS AND POLLEN The most advanced of the plants have their own way of sexually reproducing. It is a very fancy and very complex process. Plants that rely on flowersfor reproduction are also very dependent on outside help such as insects and animals. While conifers have the two structures on one tree, flowering plants went one step further and put the devices that make and in the same structure.

How does that help? A bee might go to one flower and get a little pollen on its back. If it goes to another flower of the same species, that pollencan land on the stigma. From that point, one haploid male nucleus combines with a female nucleus and the other haploid male nucleus combines with a polar nucleus. If successful, an embryo and seed/fruitdevelop respectively.