Biology
Reviewed by Paul Heideman, Professor, College of William and Mary on 6/20/17
Comprehensiveness
I am reviewing this textbook not for a first year course in introductory biology, but for a second-year one-semester course on the integrative biology of animals. For “Integrative Biology: Animals”, I need a biology textbook with three types of content: (1) the ‘toolkit’ of genes, proteins, structures, and pathways used by animals for the processes of life, (2) a biodiversity section that covers motile protists and about 10 major phyla of animals: Porifera, Cnidaria, Ctenophora, Platyhelminthes, Nematoda, Annelida, Mollusca, Arthropoda, Echinodermata, and Chordata, and (3) physiology and anatomy covering the basic structure and function of animals. For my purposes, the text covers these topics at the right breadth and depth. For my purposes, the weakest section is on phylogenetics, but I always need to supplement that section of any text. The second-weakest section for my course is on developmental biology, and there are some other texts that offer more (e.g., on polarity genes, segmentation genes, and hox genes).
I offer more details on comprehensiveness and other topics in my additional comments at the end of this review.
Content Accuracy
Generally, this text meets the level of accuracy I find in other texts. During my review, I noticed some things i would correct. For example, the link on text page 149 to “the process of diffusion” links to a video showing dispersion (not diffusion) of a dye in water, with the dispersion clearly due to turbulence created by adding the dye to a beaker of water. The short video is correctly labeled as dispersion in Wikipedia rather than as diffusion. I may notice more such problems when I adopt the text for my course.
Relevance/Longevity
The text is relevant, and it should remain so for some time. Details from recent discoveries are always additions I make to the course, and I do not need the most recent findings in my textbook.
Clarity
The book reads clearly to me. But I'll need student feedback to assess whether it reads clearly to students.
Consistency
In the sections I plan to use, there is consistency. I may discover more inconsistency when I am using it with my students.
Modularity
The books modularity is what makes it helpful. I can focus on the sections I need, and they seem to stand alone without needing references to others.
Organization/Structure/Flow
The topics are presented in a format that is typical and logical for a large introductory biology text.
Interface
Many figures are not readable until viewing at 200% or even 300%. That should be fine on a laptop or desktop computer.
Grammatical Errors
I noticed no problems. But I confess that I was not look closely at the grammar.
Cultural Relevance
I did not perceive any problems.
CommentsFor my course, "Integrative Biology: Animals" at the sophomore level, this book should be a useful resource for students. There is no open source zoology textbook available, and in any case, the published texts tend to be too heavy on facts and too weak on what I present as the ‘logic of zoology’ – the evolutionary reasons or biochemical constraints that are common drivers of the structure and function of animals. (Examples include: why do we use action potentials for internal communication instead of direct current or signaling using photons; why are our skeletons made of calcium and phosphate rather than other minerals, and why do mammals use an inefficient tidal lung while birds use an efficient one-way flow that can extract more oxygen than mammals?) None of the existing textbooks for zoology cover this material well enough to be worth the cost to students. In the sections of my review below, I discuss the information my students need in relation to the content of this text.
1. The ‘Toolkit’. Students will have seen much of the necessary content in a year-long introductory sequence, but nonetheless will need reference and reminders on the chemistry of life (Ch 2), biological molecules (Ch 3), cell structure (Ch 4), and membrane function (Ch 5). Most of the descriptions and illustrations in these chapters and those below are useful ones that are equivalent to those in most other textbooks. In addition, students need to refer to some of the background on cell metabolism and cellular respiration (Ch 6 and Ch 7, respectively). A quibble I have with this and most other textbooks is that the energy of a phosphate bond is described solely in terms of the chemistry. Nowhere does the text point out that attaching a phosphate with its -2 charge will necessarily cause a change in the conformation of the protein, and taking that phosphate back off will cause a change back to the original conformation: that cycle causes the protein to do physiologically useful activity, from powering the movement of sodium and potassium across membranes to the movement of a myosin head. I wish that any textbooks would explain what actually happens to proteins when phosphorylated and dephosphorylated, rather than solely referring to changes in energy state. Chapter 9, on signaling, provides a good explanation of the basics of cell-cell communication, a central element of what makes animals different from unicellular eukaryotes. Finally, the sections on eukaryotic transcription, translation, and gene regulation (Ch 15 & 16) provide sufficient background for students to understand why all cells in an animal can have all the same genes but nonetheless have very different patterns of gene expression and function.
2. Single-celled eukaryotes and the major phyla of animals. In order to understand animal function, students must understand that the fundamental molecular tool kit of animals is largely present in single-celled eukaryotes. The chapter on protists (23) provides a good summary of structure and some aspects of function. I would prefer more detail on, for example, the similarity of the molecular basis of movement in protists and in animals. However, no zoology textbook I’ve found since R. MacNeil Alexander’s “Animals” of the 1990’s has attempted to fully integrate these molecular details of function with protist structure. Chapter 23 provides a foundation. Chapters 28 and 29 on invertebrates and vertebrates, respectively, provide an overview of the major phyla. For each of these phyla, there is at least one illustration of major structural elements and a discussion of characteristic features, along with images of typical forms. These chapters provide sufficient background, though they will be best if supplemented with a laboratory text that provides more details and images.
3. Physiology and anatomy covering the basic structure and function of animals. Unit 7, Chapters 33 – 41, covers the major systems of animals, including digestive, nervous, sensory, endocrine, musculoskeletal, respiratory, circulatory, excretory, immune, and reproductive systems. In approximately 280 pages these offer a solid introduction to structure and physiological function. Images of structures and processes are clear and useful, and this section is limited mostly by the comparatively strong focus on mammalian and human physiology. It would be helpful for my objectives to have a stronger treatment of invertebrates.
4. Links. The video links I checked were generally good, although a few include misconceptions. One misconception is in the link on text page 149 to “the process of diffusion” as it actually links to a video showing dispersion of a dye in water due to turbulent currents created by adding the dye to a beaker of water (and is correctly labeled as dispersion in Wikipedia), rather than diffusion. Some of the links would not open, such as a video link illustrating the fluidity of membranes. In another case, for videos on enzyme function, the web page opened, but the enzyme videos were not visible on my old MacBook Pro running Safari 9.0.3. Overall, I felt that the authors made wise choices in balancing clarity of illustrations against complexity of an illustration. I will be comfortable adding information and details on the logic of structure and function.
5. End of chapter problems. I did not read these in any depth because I write my own problems for students. The problems I read through struck me as sensible and mostly straightforward. Most require that students explain or apply a concept from the textbook. Students who did these problems would gain in understanding, but I think the questions are not especially strong with respect to developing new skills at applying the concepts, doing broader analysis, or synthesizing ideas.
6. Conclusion. I plan to adopt Biology OpenStax in place of a (highly-priced) standard zoology or integrative biology of animals text. Even if this text was not free, I suspect it would be a better choice because the page-count is more manageable. My students have always struggled with the ever-higher page count zoology or integrative biology textbooks. They hold far more fine details than students can absorb (or need), and there’s no easy way to tell students to read only selected pages or sections from those books. When using Biology OpenStax, I can direct students approximately 160 pages on the molecular toolkit of animals (most of which will be review from introductory biology), much of the approximately 110 pages on protists, invertebrates, and vertebrates, and most of the approximately 200 pages from Unit 7 on structure and function. In other words, the new content will be a much more manageable 300 pages that will complement short videos I prepare. I predict that this text will serve my students as well as my previous texts for this course.