Biology is designed for multi-semester biology courses for science majors. It is grounded on an evolutionary basis and includes exciting features that highlight careers in the biological sciences and everyday applications of the concepts at hand. To meet the needs of today’s instructors and students, some content has been strategically condensed while maintaining the overall scope and coverage of traditional texts for this course. Instructors can customize the book, adapting it to the approach that works best in their classroom. Biology also includes an innovative art program that incorporates critical thinking and clicker questions to help students understand—and apply—key concepts.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

Define species and describe how species are identified as different
Describe genetic variables that lead to speciation
Identify prezygotic and postzygotic reproductive barriers
Explain allopatric and sympatric speciation
Describe adaptive radiation

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

Describe pathways of species evolution in hybrid zones
Explain the two major theories on rates of speciation

By the end of this section, you will be able to:Describe how the present-day theory of evolution was developedDefine adaptationExplain convergent and divergent evolutionDescribe homologous and vestigial structuresDiscuss misconceptions about the theory of evolution

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

Compare homologous and analogous traits
Discuss the purpose of cladistics
Describe maximum parsimony

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

Discuss the need for a comprehensive classification system
List the different levels of the taxonomic classification system
Describe how systematics and taxonomy relate to phylogeny
Discuss the components and purpose of a phylogenetic tree

Biology is designed for multi-semester biology courses for science majors. It is grounded on an evolutionary basis and includes exciting features that highlight careers in the biological sciences and everyday applications of the concepts at hand. To meet the needs of today’s instructors and students, some content has been strategically condensed while maintaining the overall scope and coverage of traditional texts for this course. Instructors can customize the book, adapting it to the approach that works best in their classroom. Biology also includes an innovative art program that incorporates critical thinking and clicker questions to help students understand—and apply—key concepts.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

Identify and describe the properties of life
Describe the levels of organization among living things
Recognize and interpret a phylogenetic tree
List examples of different sub disciplines in biology

Second in a series of videos from Khan Academy and 23andMe, this video introduces human prehistory, this video describes how our human ancestors spread throughout Africa and then into other regions such as Australia and Europe. How did they reach Australia so early on? What happened when our ancestors encountered Neanderthals?

This award-winning video collaboration from Khan Academy and 23andMe introduces human prehistory starting over 200,000 years ago. Who were our first human ancestors? Where did they live?

oerc-1844 Biology is designed for multi-semester biology courses for science majors. It is grounded on an evolutionary basis and includes exciting features that highlight careers in the biological sciences and everyday applications of the concepts at hand. To meet the needs of today’s instructors and students, some content has been strategically condensed while maintaining the overall scope and coverage of traditional texts for this course. Instructors can customize the book, adapting it to the approach that works best in their classroom. Biology also includes an innovative art program that incorporates critical thinking and clicker questions to help students understand—and apply—key concepts.