SYLLABUS FOR ICAR AIEEA UG EXAM (BIOLOGY)
Unit : 1 The Living World
- Nature and scope of Biology.
- Methods of Biology.
- Our place in the universe.
- Laws that govern the universe and life.
- Level of organization.
- Cause and effect relationship.
- Being alive.
- What does it mean? Present approaches to understand life processes,
molecular approach; life as an expression of energy; steady state and
homeostasis; self duplication and survival; adaptation; death as a
positive part of life.
- Origin of life and its maintenance.
- Origin and diversity of life.
- Physical and chemical principles that maintain life processes.
- The living crust and interdependence.
- The positive and negative aspects of progress in biological
sciences.
- The future of the living world, identification of human
responsibility in shaping our future.
Unit : 2 Unit of Life
- Cell as a unit of life.
- Small biomolecules; water, minerals, mono and oligosaccharides,
lipids, amino acids, nucleotides and their chemistry, cellular location
and function.
- Macromolecules in cells - their chemistry, cellular location and
functional significance.
- Polysaccharides, proteins and nucleic acids.
- Enzymes; chemical nature, classification, mechanism in
action-enzyme complex, allosteric modulation (brief), irreversible
activation.
- Biomembranes; Fluid mosaic model of membrane, role in transport,
recognition of external information (brief).
- Structural organization of the cell; light and electron microscopic
views of cell, its organelles and their functions; nucleus mitochondria,
chloroplasts, endoplasmic reticulum.
- Golgi complex, lysosomes, microtubules, cell wall, cilia and
flagella, vacuoles, cell inclusions.
- A general account of cellular respiration.
- Fermentation, biological oxidation (A cycle outline), mitochondrial
electron transport chain, high energy bonds and oxidative phosphorylation,
cell reproduction; Process of mitosis and meiosis.
Unit : 3 Diversity of Life
- Introduction.
- The enormous variety of living things, the need for classification
to cope with this variety; taxonomy and phylogeny; shortcomings of a two
kingdom classification as plants and animals; the five kingdom
classification, Monera, Protista, Plantae, Fungi and Animalia; the basic
features of five kingdom classification. modes of obtaining
nutrition-autotrophs and heterotrophs.
- Life style producers, consumers and decomposers.
- Unicellularity and multicellularity, phylogenetic relationships.
- Concepts of species, taxon and categories - hierarchical levels of
classification; binomial nomenclature; principles of classification and
nomenclature; identification and nature of viruses and bacteriophages;
kingdom Monera-archeabacteria - life in extreme environments; Bacteria,
Actinomycetes, Cyanobacteria.
- Examples & illustration of autotrophic and heterotrophic life;
mineralizes-nitrogen fixers; Monera in cycling matter; symbiotic forms;
disease producers.
- Kingdom Protista-Eukaryotic unicellular organisms, development of
flagella and cilia; beginning of mitosis; syngamy and sex.
- Various life styles shown in the major phyla.
- Evolutionary precursors of complex life forms.
- Diatoms, dinoflagellates, slime moulds, protozons; symbiotic forms.
- Plant kingdom-complex autotrophs, red brown and green algae;
conquest of land, bryophytes, ferns, gymnosperms and angiosperms.
- Vascularization; development of flower, fruit and seed.
- Kingdom fungi-lower fungi (Zygomycetes), higher fungi (Ascomycetes
and Basidiomycetes); the importance of fungi.
- Decomposers; parasitic forms; lichens and mycorrhizae.
- Animal kingdom-animal body pattern and symmetry.
- The development of body cavity in invertebrate vertebrate physia.
- Salient features with reference to habitat and example of phylum
porifera, coelenterata, helminthis, annelids, mollusca, arthropoda,
echinoderms; chordata - (classes-fishes, amphibians, reptiles, birds and
mammals) highlighting major characters.
Unit : 4 Organisms and Environment
- Species: Origin and concept of species population, interaction
between environment and population community.
- Biotic community, interaction between different species, biotic
stability.
- Changes in the community.
- Succession.
- Ecosystem; interaction between biotic and abiotic components; major
ecosystems, manmade ecosystem- Agro ecosystem.
- Biosphere; flow of energy, trapping of solar energy, energy
pathway, food chain, food web, biogeochemical cycles, calcium and sulphur,
ecological imbalance and its consequences.
- Conservation of natural resources; renewable and non-renewable (in
brief).
- Water and land management, wasteland development.
- Wild life and forest conservation; causes for the extinction of
some wild life, steps taken to conserve the remaining species, concept of
endangered species-Indian examples, conservation of forests; Indian
forests, importance of forests, hazards of deforestation, concept of
afforestation.
- Environmental pollution; air and water pollution, sources, major
pollutants of big cities of our country, their effects and methods of
control, pollution due to nuclear fallout and waste disposal, effect and
control, noise pollution; sources and effects.
Unit : 5 Multicellularity : Structure and Function
- Plant Life
- Form and function.
- Tissue system in flowering plants; meristematic and permanent.
- Mineral nutrition-essential elements, major functions of different
elements, passive and active uptake of minerals.
- Modes of nutrition, transport of solutes and water in plants.
- Photosynthesis; photochemical and biosynthetic phases, diversity in
photosynthetic pathways, photosynthetic electron transport and
photophosphorylation, photorespiration.
- Transpiration and exchange of gases.
- Stomatal mechanism.
- Osmoregulation in plants: water relations in plant cells, water
potential.
- Reproduction and development in Angiosperms; asexual and sexual
reproduction.
- Structure and functions of flower: development of male and female
gametophytes in angiosperms, pollination, fertilization and development of
endosperm, embryo seed and fruit.
- Differentiation and organ formation.
- Plant hormones and growth regulation; action of plant hormones in
relation to seed dormancy and germination, apical dominance, senescence
and abscission.
- Applications of synthetic growth regulators.
- A brief account of growth and movement in plants.
Unit : 6 Multicellularity : Structure and Function
- Animal Life
- Animal tissues, epithelial, connective, muscular, nerve.
- Animal nutrition, organs of digestion and digestive process,
nutritional requirements for carbohydrates, proteins, fats, minerals and
vitamins; nutritional imbalances and deficiency diseases.
- Gas exchange and transport: Pulmonary gas exchange and organs
involved, transport of gases in blood, gas exchange in aqueous media
circulation: closed and open vascular systems, structure and pumping
action of heart, arterial blood pressure, lymph.
- Excretion and osomoregulation.
- Ammonotelism, Ureotelism, urecotelism, excretion of water and urea
with special reference to man.
- Role of kidney in regulation of plasma, osmolarity on the basis of
nephron structure, skin and lungs in excretion.
- Hormonal coordination; hormones of mammals, role of hormones as
messengers and regulators.
- Nervous coordination, central autonomic and peripheral nervous
systems, receptors, effectors, reflex action, basic physiology of special
senses, integrative control by neuroendocrinal systems.
- Locomotion: joints, muscle movements, types of skeletal muscles
according to types of movement, basic aspects of human skeleton.
- Reproduction; human reproduction, female reproductive cycles.
- Embryonic development in mammals (upto three germs layers), growth,
repair and ageing.
Unit : 7 Continuity of Life
- Heredity and variation: Introduction, Mendel’s experiments with
peas and concepts of factors.
- Mendel’s laws of inheritance.
- Genes: Packaging of heredity material in prokaryotes-bacterial
chromosome and plasmid; and eukaryote chromosomes.
- Extranuclear genes, viral genes.
- Linkage (genetic) maps.
- Sex determination and sex linkage.
- Genetic material and its replication, gene manipulation.
- Gene expression; genetic code, transcription, translation, gene
regulation.
- Molecular basis of differentiation.
Unit : 8 Origin and Evolution of Life
- Origin of life: living and non-living, chemical evolution, organic
evolution; Oparin ideas, Miller-Urey experiments.
- Interrelationship among living organisms and evidences of
evolution: fossil records including geological scale, Morphological
evidence - hematology, vestigeal organs, embryological similarities and
biogeographical evidence.
- Darwin’s two major contributions.
- Common origin of living organisms and recombination as source of
variability, selection and variation, adaptation (Lederberg’s replica
plating experiment for indirect selection of bacterial mutants),
reproductive isolation, speciation.
- Role of selection, change and drift in determining composition of
population.
- Selected examples: industrial melanism; drug resistance, mimicry,
malaria in relation to G-6-PD deficiency and sickle cell disease.
- Human evolution: Palcontological evidence, man’s place among
mammals.
- Brief idea of Dryopithecus, Australopithecus, Homo erectus, H.
- neanderthlensis, Cro-Magnon man and Homo sapiens.
- Human chromosomes, similarity in different racial groups.
- Comparison with chromosomes of nonhuman primates to indicate common
origin; Cultural vs. biological evolution.
- Mutation: origin and types of mutation, their role in speciation.
Unit : 9 Application of Biology
- Introduction, role of biology, in the amelioration of human
problems.
- Domestication of plant- a historical account, improvement of crop
plants; Principles of plant breeding and plant introduction.
- Use of fertilizers, their economic and ecological aspects.
- Use of pesticides: advantages and hazards.
- Biological methods of pest control.
- Crops today.
- Current concerns, gene pools and genetic conservation.
- Underutilized crops with potential uses of oilseeds, medicines,
beverages, spices, fodder, New crops-Leucaena (Subabul), Jojoba, Guayule,
winged bean, etc.
- Biofertilizers - green manure, crop residues and nitrogen fixation
(symbiotic, non symbiotic).
- Applications of tissue culture and genetic engineering in crops.
- Domestication and introduction of animals.
- Livestock, poultry, fisheries (fresh water, marine, aquaculture).
- Improvement of animals: principles of animal breeding.
- Major animal diseases and their control.
- Insects and their products (silk, honey, wax and lac).
- Bioenergy-biomass, wood (combustion; gasification, ethanol).
- Cow dung cakes, gobar gas, plants as sources of hydrocarbons for
producing petroleum, ethanol from starch and lignocellulose.
- Biotechnology, application in health and agriculture, genetically
modified (GM) organisms, bio-safety issues.
- A brief historical account-manufacture of cheese.
- yoghurt, alcohol, yeast, vitamins, organic acids, antibiotics,
steroids, dextrins.
- Scaling up laboratory findings to Industrial production, sewage
treatment.
- Production of insulin, human growth hormones, interferon.
- Communicable diseases including STD and diseases spread through
‘blood transfusion (hepatitis, AIDS, etc) Immune response, vaccine and
antisera.
- Allergies and Inflammation.
- Inherited diseases and dysfunctions, sex-linked diseases, genetic
incompatibilities, and genetic counseling.
- Cancer-major types, causes, diagnosis and treatment.
- Tissue and organ transplantation.
- Community health services and measures; blood banks; mental health,
smoking, alcoholism and drug addiction-physiological symptoms and control
measures.
- Industrial wastes, toxicology, pollution-related diseases.
- Biomedical engineering - spare parts for man, instruments for
diagnosis of diseases and care.
- Human population related diseases.
- Human population, growth, problems and control, inequality between
sexes, control measures; test-tube babies aminocentesis.
- Future of Biology.
Source : ICAR Website
