The visual guide to
AP® Biology
9 units, 142 topics. Each topic is explained in writing, drawn as a lesson you can watch, and checked with practice questions.
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Each unit is as wide as its share of the exam's multiple-choice section. Striped units aren't weighted on the exam.Filled: topics you've opened.
Unit 1Chemistry of Life
- Structure of Water and Hydrogen Bonding
- Cohesion, Adhesion, and Surface Tension
- Specific Heat and Heat of Vaporization
- Water as the Solvent of Life
- Elements of Life
- Monomers, Polymers, and Directionality
- Dehydration Synthesis and Hydrolysis
- Carbohydrates
- Lipids
- Nucleic Acids
- Amino Acids and the Peptide Bond
- Levels of Protein Structure
Unit 2Cells
- Subcellular Components and Organelles
- The Endomembrane System
- Energy Organelles and Their Membranes
- Surface Area-to-Volume Ratio
- Cell Shape, Folds, and Exchange
- The Phospholipid Bilayer
- The Fluid Mosaic Model
- Selective Permeability
- The Cell Wall
- Passive and Active Transport
- Endocytosis and Exocytosis
- Facilitated Diffusion
- Tonicity and Cell Volume
- Water Potential and Osmoregulation
- Active Transport and the Sodium-Potassium Pump
- Cell Compartmentalization
- Origins of Cell Compartmentalization
Unit 3Cellular Energetics
- Enzymes and Activation Energy
- The Enzyme-Substrate Complex
- Temperature, pH, and Denaturation
- Substrate Concentration and Reaction Rate
- Competitive and Noncompetitive Inhibition
- Energy, Order, and Thermodynamics
- ATP and Coupled Reactions
- Conserved Pathways and Common Ancestry
- Chloroplast Structure and Pigments
- The Light-Dependent Reactions
- The Calvin Cycle
- Glycolysis
- Pyruvate Oxidation and the Krebs Cycle
- The Electron Transport Chain and Chemiosmosis
- Fermentation
Unit 4Cell Communication and Cell Cycle
- Cell-to-Cell Communication
- Local and Long-Distance Signaling
- Reception: Ligands and Receptors
- Transduction and Phosphorylation Cascades
- Cellular Responses to Signals
- Mutations and Chemicals That Disrupt Signaling
- Negative Feedback
- Positive Feedback
- Interphase: G1, S, and G2
- Mitosis and Cytokinesis
- Cell Cycle Checkpoints, Cyclins, and Cdks
- Disruptions to the Cell Cycle
Unit 5Heredity
- Meiosis I
- Meiosis II and the Haploid Product
- Crossing Over and Recombination
- Independent Assortment and Random Fertilization
- Nondisjunction
- Mendel's Law of Segregation
- Independent Assortment and Dihybrid Crosses
- Chi-Square Testing of Genetic Crosses
- Incomplete Dominance and Codominance
- Sex-Linked Inheritance and Pedigrees
- Linked Genes and Gene Mapping
- Pleiotropy and Non-Nuclear Inheritance
- Environmental Effects on Phenotype
Unit 6Gene Expression and Regulation
- DNA and RNA Structure
- Base Pairing, Purines, and Pyrimidines
- Chromosome Structure, Histones, and Plasmids
- DNA Replication and the Replication Fork
- Leading and Lagging Strands
- Transcription
- RNA Processing
- The Genetic Code and Codons
- Translation
- Regulation of Gene Expression
- Epigenetic Regulation
- Transcription Factors, Promoters, and Enhancers
- Gene Expression and Cell Specialization
- Point, Frameshift, Nonsense, and Silent Mutations
- Chromosomal Mutations and Aneuploidy
- Gel Electrophoresis
- PCR, Transformation, and DNA Sequencing
Unit 7Natural Selection
- Introduction to Natural Selection
- Fitness and Reproductive Success
- Phenotypic Variation and Selective Pressure
- Directional, Stabilizing, and Disruptive Selection
- Artificial Selection
- Mutation and Genetic Drift
- Bottleneck and Founder Effects
- Gene Flow and Migration
- The Hardy-Weinberg Model and Its Conditions
- Calculating Allele and Genotype Frequencies
- Fossil, Morphological, and Geological Evidence
- Molecular Evidence for Evolution
- Common Ancestry
- Continuing Evolution
- Reading Phylogenetic Trees and Cladograms
- Building a Cladogram from Shared Derived Characters
- Speciation and Reproductive Isolation
- Allopatric and Sympatric Speciation
- Gradualism, Punctuated Equilibrium, and Convergence
- Variations in Populations
- Origins of Life on Earth
Unit 8Ecology
- Responses to the Environment
- Communication and Information Exchange
- Energy Budgets, Endotherms, and Ectotherms
- Trophic Levels and Energy Flow
- The Carbon Cycle
- The Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Water Cycles
- Exponential Growth
- Birth Rate, Death Rate, and Population Change
- Carrying Capacity and Logistic Growth
- Density-Dependent and Density-Independent Factors
- Species Composition and Diversity
- Competition, Predation, and Niche Partitioning
- Symbiosis and Interspecies Relationships
- Biodiversity, Keystone Species, and Resilience
- Adaptation, Heterozygote Advantage, and Random Mutation
- Invasive Species and Ecosystem Disruption
Unit 9Lab Investigations and Science Practices
- Investigation 1: Artificial Selection
- Investigation 2: Mathematical Modeling of Hardy-Weinberg
- Investigation 3: Comparing DNA Sequences with BLAST
- Investigation 4: Diffusion and Osmosis
- Investigation 5: Photosynthesis and the Floating Leaf Disk
- Separating Photosynthetic Pigments by Chromatography
- Investigation 6: Cellular Respiration and the Respirometer
- Investigation 7: Cell Division, Mitosis, and Meiosis
- Investigation 8: Bacterial Transformation
- Investigation 9: Restriction Enzyme Analysis of DNA
- Investigation 10: Energy Dynamics
- Investigation 11: Transpiration
- Investigation 12: Fruit Fly Behavior
- Investigation 13: Enzyme Activity
- Science Practice 4: Building and Reading Graphs
- Science Practice 5: Means, Standard Error, and Error Bars
- Science Practice 5: Chi-Square Hypothesis Testing
- Science Practice 3: Experimental Design, Variables, and Controls
- Science Practice 2: Representing Systems with Models