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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 ...
This glossary of cellular and molecular biology is a list of definitions of terms and concepts commonly used in the study of cell biology, molecular biology, and related disciplines, including molecular genetics, biochemistry, and microbiology. [1] It is split across two articles:
The term "homology" was first used in biology by the anatomist Richard Owen in 1843 when studying the similarities of vertebrate fins and limbs, defining it as the "same organ in different animals under every variety of form and function", [6] and contrasting it with the matching term "analogy" which he used to describe different structures ...
Anatomical terms are not included here and appear in sub-categories of the main Anatomy category. Initially, some alignment between this category and the article Glossary of biology was considered, but the inclusion criteria for the Glossary is substantially broader and encompasses terminology, concepts, objects and processes.
Sequence homology is the biological homology between DNA, RNA, or protein sequences, defined in terms of shared ancestry in the evolutionary history of life. Two segments of DNA can have shared ancestry because of three phenomena: either a speciation event (orthologs), or a duplication event (paralogs), or else a horizontal (or lateral) gene ...
All of these terms are by definition relative, in that a trait can be a plesiomorphy in one context and an apomorphy in another, e.g. having a backbone is plesiomorphic between birds and mammals, but is apomorphic between them and insects.
Both terms are relative: a derived trait for one clade may be an ancestral trait for a different clade. The term "derived trait" is often used interchangeably with the more technical term apomorphy. descendant developmental biology diploid. Denoted in shorthand with the somatic number 2n.
A thesaurus (pl.: thesauri or thesauruses), sometimes called a synonym dictionary or dictionary of synonyms, is a reference work which arranges words by their meanings (or in simpler terms, a book where one can find different words with similar meanings to other words), [1] [2] sometimes as a hierarchy of broader and narrower terms, sometimes simply as lists of synonyms and antonyms.