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In evolutionary biology, the Baldwin effect describes an effect of learned behaviour on evolution. James Mark Baldwin and others suggested that an organism's ability to learn new behaviours (e.g. to acclimatise to a new stressor) will affect its reproductive success and will therefore have an effect on the genetic makeup of its species through ...
This glossary of biology terms is a list of definitions of fundamental terms and concepts used in biology, the study of life and of living organisms.It is intended as introductory material for novices; for more specific and technical definitions from sub-disciplines and related fields, see Glossary of cell biology, Glossary of genetics, Glossary of evolutionary biology, Glossary of ecology ...
For example, birth rate, death rate, migration, and density-dependent predation indirectly alter the ecosystem state by changing population density (a state variable). Ecosystem parameters are quantities that are unresponsive (or respond very slowly) to feedbacks from the system (i.e., they are independent of system feedbacks).
Biosemiotics (from the Greek βίος bios, "life" and σημειωτικός sēmeiōtikos, "observant of signs") is a field of semiotics and biology that studies the prelinguistic meaning-making, biological interpretation processes, production of signs and codes and communication processes in the biological realm.
This challenges the traditional view that life must arise solely from biomolecules, such as proteins and nucleic acids, and suggests that life's origins may be more complex and varied. The paper also addresses the "N = 1 problem [6]," which refers to the limitation of basing all theories of life on a single example—life on Earth. This ...
Thomas makes examples of animals from termites and earthworms to gorillas and alligators that perform some sort of rhythmic noise making that can be interpreted as music if we had full range of hearing. From the vast number of animals that participate in music it is clear that the need to make music is a fundamental characteristic of biology.
The pygmy mammoth is an example of insular dwarfism, a case of Foster's rule, its unusually small body size an adaptation to the limited resources of its island home.. A biological rule or biological law is a generalized law, principle, or rule of thumb formulated to describe patterns observed in living organisms.
Some biologists and religious thinkers held that evolution itself was somehow goal-directed (orthogenesis), and in vitalist versions, driven by a purposeful life force. With evolution working by natural selection acting on inherited variation , the use of teleology in biology has attracted criticism, and attempts have been made to teach ...