General Biology II — Diversity, Organisms and Ecology flashcards
10 of 78 cards free to study here · 12 topics · the whole deck is built into Willys
The second semester of majors biology with a comparative angle: prokaryotes, protists, fungi, plant evolution, transport and hormones, animal phyla and their key innovations, physiology across animal groups, behavior, population and community ecology, ecosystems and conservation.
Learn deck · part of General Biology I/II · written against: Standard two-semester majors sequence; OpenStax Biology 2e, consulted as a reference; no text copied. Updated 2026-10-10.
Study the free sample
10 cards from the deck as they are. Flip, rate yourself, filter by topic; your progress stays in this browser.
Tap the card or press Space to flip
The 10 sample cards as a list
-
Archaea and bacteria are both prokaryotes. Which features set archaea apart?Archaeal membranes are built from ether-linked lipids with branched isoprenoid chains, their cell walls lack peptidoglycan, and their RNA polymerase, ribosomes and histone-like proteins resemble those of eukaryotes.Prokaryote and Protist Diversity
Bacteria have ester-linked fatty acid lipids and almost always peptidoglycan walls.
Why: this molecular evidence is why the three-domain system gives archaea a domain of their own, closer to eukaryotes than bacteria are. -
Fungi were once grouped with plants. Which evidence places them closer to animals?Like animals, fungi are heterotrophs, store carbohydrate as glycogen and make chitin (also found in arthropod exoskeletons), and chytrid swimming cells have a single posterior flagellum like animal sperm. DNA sequences confirm that fungi and animals share a common ancestor within the opisthokonts.Fungi
-
Which generation is dominant in a moss, a fern and a flowering plant?Plant Evolution and Diversity
- In mosses the gametophyte dominates, and the sporophyte grows on it and depends on it
- In ferns the sporophyte dominates, but the small gametophyte still lives independently
- In flowering plants the sporophyte dominates and the gametophyte is reduced to a few cells inside the flower — the pollen grain and the embryo sac.
-
What did the Darwins' and Went's experiments on grass coleoptiles show about phototropism?The Darwins found that a coleoptile bends toward light only if its tip is exposed, so the tip senses light and sends a signal down. Went collected that signal in agar blocks from cut tips and showed it alone could make decapitated coleoptiles bend; the chemical became known as auxin.Plant Hormones and Responses
-
Sponge choanocytes closely resemble single-celled choanoflagellates. Why does that matter for animal evolution?Choanocytes (collar cells) trap food with a flagellum ringed by a collar of microvilli, just as choanoflagellates do. This similarity, backed by molecular data, marks choanoflagellates as the closest living relatives of animals and suggests animals arose from a colonial choanoflagellate-like ancestor.Animal Diversity
Watch out: sponges lack true tissues, so they sit near the base of the animal tree. -
How does a hydra's nervous system differ from a flatworm's, and what trend does the comparison show?A hydra has a diffuse nerve net with no brain, suited to its radial body. A flatworm has paired ventral nerve cords and a cluster of ganglia at the head end — cephalization, which goes with bilateral symmetry and forward movement.Animal Physiology › Nervous and Endocrine
-
Male sticklebacks attack crude red-bellied models but ignore lifelike models without red. What concept does this illustrate?A fixed action pattern: an innate, stereotyped behavior triggered by a simple sign stimulus — here a rival's red belly — that runs to completion once begun. Tinbergen's experiments showed that the cue matters more than the intruder's overall appearance.Animal Behavior
-
In Connell's experiments on Scottish rocky shores, what happened to the barnacle Chthamalus when the larger Balanus was removed from the lower intertidal zone?Chthamalus spread down into the zone it had been excluded from, showing that competition with Balanus confined it to the upper shore. Its fundamental niche is wider than its realized niche; on the upper shore, drying stress rather than competition keeps Balanus out.Community Ecology
-
Why do endotherms such as mice turn a much smaller share of their assimilated food into new biomass than ectotherms such as insects?Endotherms spend most of their assimilated energy on respiration to generate body heat, so their production efficiency — the fraction of assimilated energy turned into growth and reproduction — is low. Ectotherms do not heat themselves and can put a larger share into biomass.Ecosystems and Biogeochemical Cycles
-
How was the Florida panther population rescued from inbreeding depression in the 1990s?In 1995 eight female pumas from Texas were released into the inbred Florida population, which showed kinked tails, heart defects and poor sperm quality. This genetic rescue brought in new alleles, reduced those defects and was followed by a marked rise in panther numbers.Conservation Biology
Unlock the whole deck
You are studying a free 10-card sample. All 78 cards of General Biology II — Diversity, Organisms and Ecology, the other 2 General Biology I/II decks, and spaced-repetition scheduling are built into Willys. 14-day free trial, then $14.99 a year.
In Willys, tap Exam Library at the top of your Decks (or Browse Exam Library… under the + button), find the exam on its shelf or by search, tick it and tap Add.
More General Biology I/II decks
← All General Biology I/II decks, with the study guide and topic outline.
About these cards
Review status: Second-reader reviewed, with corrections applied.
Checked against:
- OpenStax Biology 2e, consulted as a reference; no text copied.
These are independent study notes written for Willys. They are not official exam material, may contain mistakes, and are no substitute for your course, your teacher or the exam owner's own publications. Found an error? Tell us — corrections ship as a new version of the deck.
Use of these pages is covered by our Terms of Use.