BIOL1030 Diversity of Life
The Complete Exam Bible · S2 2026BIOL1030 Overview
- Australian National University
- Level 1 course
- Semester 2, 2026
- Lectures, labs and tutorials
- Final exam is a hurdle
BIOL1030 Diversity of Life is a first-year course at the Australian National University that surveys the evolution and diversity of multicellular life.
- Assessed by Weekly and lab quizzes, lab books, four assignments and a final exam worth 40%.
- Hurdle rule Below 40% on the final exam means a final grade of NCN, whatever the coursework.
- Heaviest stretch Unit 6 delivers nine plant lectures in Weeks 4 to 6.
- Answer pattern Name the mechanism, predict the change, then say what you would measure.
- How to prepare Work the posted practice questions and lecture study questions unit by unit.
How BIOL1030 is assessed
| Component | Weight | Format |
|---|---|---|
| Weekly Quizzes | 10% | Twelve online quizzes, one per teaching week, at 0.833% each; linked to the Pearson textbook, open-book, closing at 5 pm on Friday with no extensions |
| Lab Quizzes | 10% | Five quizzes at 2% each, held at the beginning of each lab in Weeks 2, 4, 6, 7 and 10 |
| Lab Books | 10% | Five lab books at 2% each, marked in class during the final hour of each lab |
| Assignments | 30% | Four assignments at 7.5% each, due in Weeks 4, 6, 7 and 12 and submitted on Canvas before 5 pm; 5% late penalty per workday, not accepted more than 10 days late |
| Final Exam · hurdle | 40% | Held in the exam period. Course hurdle: students who do not achieve at least 40% on the final exam receive a final grade of NCN (Fail) |
Weights come from the assessment list on the course home page and total 100%: twelve weekly quizzes at 0.833% each make about 10%. An optional Honours Pathway Option, entered with the convener's approval, replaces 10% of the overall assessment with a structured report on molecular phylogenetics, and students may opt out before the last day of teaching.
What BIOL1030 covers
Fourteen chapters follow the four units: three on the evolution and diversity of life, seven on plant form and function, three on animal form and function and one on ecology.
Phylogeny, Prokaryotes and Protists
Unit 5. Reading trees, monophyletic and paraphyletic groups, orthologues, bacteria and archaea, protists and endosymbiosis.Phylogeny, Prokaryotes and Protists covers the first three lectures of Unit 5 in Week 1. It begins with how to read a phylogenetic tree: roots, branches and nodes, ancestors placed at nodes, and the difference between monophyletic, paraphyletic and polyphyletic groups, shown with whales and their hoofed relatives.
- Roots, branches and nodes on a phylogenetic tree
- Monophyletic, paraphyletic and polyphyletic groups
- Plesiomorphies, synapomorphies and gene versus species trees
- Bacteria and archaea: membranes, differentiation and recombination
- Asgard archaea and the origin of eukaryotes
- Primary and secondary endosymbiosis and the nucleomorph
Plants and Fungi Colonise the Land
Unit 5. Charophyte ancestors, alternation of generations, bryophytes, ferns, seed plants, flowers and the fungi.Plants and Fungi Colonise the Land follows the Week 2 lectures from charophyte algae to seed plants and then to the fungi.
- Characters shared by charophytes and land plants
- Alternation of generations and which generation dominates
- Bryophytes, seedless vascular plants and seed plants
- Mycelium, hyphae, budding and asexual spores
- Chytrids, zygomycetes, glomeromycetes, ascomycetes and basidiomycetes
- Lichens and mycorrhizae as partnerships
Animal Origins and Early Diversification
Unit 5. Choanoflagellates, sponge body plans and cell types, cnidarians, ctenophores, echinoderms and chordates.Animal Origins and Early Diversification covers the Week 3 lectures on how animals began and diversified.
- The Ediacaran Period and the first animals
- Choanoflagellates and the choanocytes of sponges
- Sponge body plans, layers and cell types
- Cnidarians: Anthozoa, Medusozoa and reef holobionts
- Ctenophores and the origin of nerves and muscles
- Echinoderms, hemichordates and the chordate ancestors
Why Plants Matter and How They Are Built
Unit 6. Plants in the carbon and water cycles, roots, stems and leaves, tissue systems and specialised cell types.Why Plants Matter and How They Are Built covers the first two plant lectures of Unit 6 in Week 4. The first makes the case for plants with evidence: discoveries such as the cell, inheritance and transposable elements were first made in plants, plants supply oxygen, food and medicines, and they run large parts of the global carbon and water cycles, with photosynthesis taking up about 123 gigatonnes of carbon a year.
- Discoveries in biology first made in plants
- Plants and human wellbeing: oxygen, food, drugs and energy
- The land carbon budget and rising atmospheric CO2
- Transpiration and the global water cycle
- Roots, stems, leaves and their modified forms
- Dermal, ground and vascular tissue systems
Plant Growth, Meristems and Plasticity
Unit 6. Apical and lateral meristems, primary and secondary growth, tree rings, genotype by environment and plasticity.Plant Growth, Meristems and Plasticity follows Lecture 3 of Unit 6, on how plants keep remodelling themselves.
- Indeterminate growth and apical meristems
- Protoderm, ground meristem and procambium in the root
- Lateral roots from the pericycle and nutrient patches
- Eudicot and monocot roots, stems and intercalary meristems
- Primary versus secondary growth, cambia, wood and rings
- Genotype, environment and phenotypic plasticity
Water Transport and Drought
Unit 6. Water potential, apoplast and symplast, Casparian strip, cohesion and tension, stomata, CAM and drought traits.Water Transport and Drought covers Lecture 4 of Unit 6, on how water moves from soil to canopy and how plants survive when it runs short. Water always flows down a gradient of water potential, which adds a solute term to a pressure term.
- Water potential and its solute and pressure components
- Turgor pressure and wilting
- Apoplast, symplast and the Casparian strip
- Transpiration, cohesion, adhesion and cavitation
- Guard cells, potassium and the stomatal trade-off
- CAM and drought traits in Australian plants
Carbon Gain, Phloem and C4 and CAM Plants
Unit 6. Sources and sinks, pressure flow in phloem, Rubisco and photorespiration, and how C3, C4 and CAM plants differ.Carbon Gain, Phloem and C4 and CAM Plants follows Lecture 5 of Unit 6, on how plants turn carbon dioxide into sugar, move that sugar and cope with the limits of photosynthesis.
- Sources, sinks and changing source-sink relations
- Xylem and phloem compared
- Symplastic and apoplastic phloem loading
- The pressure-flow hypothesis and grain filling in wheat
- Net photosynthesis, Rubisco and photorespiration
- Evolution of C4 photosynthesis and Kranz anatomy
Soil Nutrients and Root Symbioses
Unit 6. Cation exchange, phosphate binding, cluster roots, the nitrogen cycle, nodules, mycorrhizae and odd nutrition.Soil Nutrients and Root Symbioses follows Lecture 6 of the plant unit, which asks how plants obtain scarce mineral nutrients once carbon and water are secured.
- Soil as a living system and why upper horizons matter
- Cation exchange and root acidification
- Phosphate binding and cluster roots in the Proteaceae
- Mineralisation, nitrification and nitrate uptake
- Free-living and Rhizobium nitrogen fixation
- Ectomycorrhizae and arbuscular mycorrhizae
Flowers, Pollination and Seeds
Unit 6. Sporophyte and gametophyte, pollination by reward and deception, double fertilisation, fruits, seeds and heat.Flowers, Pollination and Seeds covers Lecture 7 of the plant unit: how a plant rooted in place reproduces. It defines the sporophyte, the pollen grain and the embryo sac, and explains why flowering plant gametophytes are unusually small and dependent.
- Flower parts and what each one does
- Sporophyte, gametophyte and gamete in flowering plants
- Rewards, heat, scent and deception in pollination
- Pollination versus fertilisation
- Double fertilisation: zygote and endosperm
- Seeds, fruits, dispersal and germination
Plant Signals, Timing and Stress Responses
Unit 6. Auxin and other hormones, tropisms, branching, sugar signals, photoreceptors, photoperiod, priming and acclimation.Plant Signals, Timing and Stress Responses combines Lectures 8 and 9, which ask how plants coordinate growth without a nervous system and how they survive changing environments.
- Signal perception, transduction and gene expression
- Auxin transport, acid growth and tropisms
- Branching networks: auxin, strigolactone and cytokinin
- Sugars as signals and biomass allocation
- Photoreceptors, phytochrome and shade avoidance
- Circadian clocks and photoperiodism by night length
Animal Reproduction, Development and Nutrition
Unit 7. The hypothalamic, pituitary and gonadal axis, parthenogenesis, embryo membranes, metabolic rate and nutrition.Animal Reproduction, Development and Nutrition follows the Week 7 lectures on how a fertilised egg becomes a complex, working animal.
- GnRH, LH, FSH and the male gonadal axis
- Parthenogenesis, gynogenesis and how to tell them apart
- Extraembryonic membranes, cleavage and tissue-specific enhancers
- ATP, the sodium-potassium pump and metabolic rate
- Body size scaling, BMR and SMR
- Essential nutrients and nutritional geometry
Digestion, Gas Exchange and Salt Balance
Unit 7. Gut microbes and transit, secretin and CCK, circulation, altitude and EPO, osmoregulation and the kidney loop.Digestion, Gas Exchange and Salt Balance covers the Week 8 lectures on how tissues and organs cooperate to fuel metabolism in changing environments.
- Microbial fermentation and gut transit time
- Secretin, CCK and duodenal pH
- Colonic sodium and water absorption
- Open and closed circulatory systems
- Altitude, EPO and oxygen-carrying capacity
- Osmoconformers, osmoregulators and the cost of ion pumping
Animal Hormones, Neurons and Behaviour
Unit 7. Nervous and endocrine control, adrenaline receptors, thyroid hormone, action potentials, vision and behaviour.Animal Hormones, Neurons and Behaviour covers the Week 9 lectures on how animals take in information and turn it into a coordinated response.
- Nervous versus endocrine responses to danger
- Adrenergic receptor types and their effects
- T4 to T3 conversion and negative feedback
- EPSPs, IPSPs and summation at the axon hillock
- Voltage-gated sodium channels and tetrodotoxin
- Rods, cones and lateral inhibition
Ecology: Distributions, Niches and Populations
Unit 8. Biomes and fire, limits to distribution, fundamental and realised niches, and exponential, logistic and lagged growth.Ecology: Distributions, Niches and Populations covers the Unit 8 lectures that open in Week 10. It starts with why climate alone cannot predict which species live somewhere: fire can lock a site into grassland or forest, and shared climate gives Mediterranean shrublands the same structure but different species because their lineages have different histories.
- Climate, fire feedback and alternative vegetation states
- Ecosystem structure versus species composition
- Dispersal, behaviour, biotic and abiotic limits to distribution
- Fundamental and realised niches in Connell's barnacles
- Natural experiments and their confounds
- Exponential, logistic and time-lagged growth models
Its welcome page describes the aim as introducing plants, animals and fungi and giving students a solid grounding in the evolution and diversity of multicellular organisms, with lectures on animal and plant structure and function and on current issues such as the effect of climate change on plant species and populations. The semester runs in four units.
Unit 5, Evolution and Diversity of Life, covers phylogenetic trees, bacteria and archaea, protists and endosymbiosis, the colonisation of land by plants and fungi, and the origin and early diversification of animals.
Unit 6, Plant Form and Function, is a sequence of nine lectures on why plants matter, how they are built and grow, how they acquire water, carbon and nutrients, how flowering plants reproduce and how they sense and respond to their environment.
Unit 7, Animal Form and Function, moves from reproduction, development, metabolism and nutrition to digestion, gas exchange and water and salt balance, and then to hormones, neurons and behaviour. Unit 8, Ecology, asks what determines where species live and builds the population models used through the later lectures.
Practicals include microscopy, snail and fish dissections, a stomatal density lab, a plant walk and a plants and microbes lab. Assessment combines weekly online quizzes, lab quizzes and lab books, four assignments and a final exam worth 40% that is also a course hurdle. This guide follows the units in order, works an original example in every chapter and closes with mixed practice and an exam-week checklist.
Worked example · free
Find where logistic growth is fastest
- 1Use growth = r × N × (1 − N/K), where 1 − N/K is the fraction of room left.
- 1N = 100: room left 0.9, so growth = 0.5 × 100 × 0.9 = 45 per year.
- 1N = 250: room left 0.75, so growth = 0.5 × 250 × 0.75 = 93.75 per year.
- 1N = 500: room left 0.5, so growth = 0.5 × 500 × 0.5 = 125 per year.
- 1N = 750: room left 0.25, so growth = 0.5 × 750 × 0.25 = 93.75 per year, the same as at 250.
Key terms
- Phylogenetic tree
- A branching diagram of inferred evolutionary relationships, with ancestors at its nodes.
- Monophyletic group
- A group made of one ancestor and every one of its descendants, also called a clade.
- Endosymbiosis
- The origin of an organelle from a cell that came to live inside another cell, as mitochondria and plastids did.
- Alternation of generations
- A plant life cycle that alternates a haploid gametophyte with a diploid sporophyte.
- Choanocyte
- A flagellated sponge cell whose collar of microvilli traps bacteria and microalgae from the water it pumps.
- Meristem
- Plant tissue whose cells keep dividing, producing new organs throughout the plant's life.
- Water potential
- A measure of the tendency of water to move, combining solute and pressure effects; water flows from higher to lower values.
- Pressure flow
- Bulk movement of phloem sap from source to sink, driven by pressure built up where sugars are loaded.
- Photorespiration
- Oxygen uptake by Rubisco that consumes RuBP and releases previously fixed carbon as CO2.
- Mycorrhiza
- A symbiosis between a plant root and a fungus whose hyphae extend the soil volume explored for nutrients.
- Double fertilisation
- The flowering-plant process in which one sperm forms the zygote and a second forms the triploid endosperm.
- Negative feedback
- Control in which a product suppresses its own production, holding a variable near a set level.
- Osmoregulator
- An animal that keeps its internal osmolarity relatively stable when the surrounding water changes.
- Carrying capacity
- The largest population that an environment's resources can support over time.
BIOL1030 FAQ
How hard is Diversity of Life?
It is broad rather than mathematically demanding. Four units span microbes, plants, fungi, animals and ecology, Unit 6 delivers nine plant lectures in three weeks, and something is assessed almost every week through online quizzes, lab quizzes and lab books. The final exam then carries 40% of the course and is a hurdle, so steady weekly revision matters more than a late cram.
How is Diversity of Life assessed?
Weekly online quizzes are worth 10% in total, lab quizzes 10% and lab books 10%, four assignments 30% at 7.5% each, and the final exam 40%. The quizzes are open-book and close at 5 pm each Friday, lab work is assessed during each lab, and assignments go through Canvas with a late penalty of 5% per workday.
What happens if I score under 40% on the final exam?
The final exam is a course hurdle. A student who does not reach at least 40% on it receives a final grade of NCN, a fail, regardless of how well the quizzes, labs and assignments went. Passing the hurdle removes that outcome, but your grade still comes from the full weighted total.
Are the weekly quizzes open-book?
Yes. Each weekly quiz is linked to the online Pearson textbook, is open-book and closes at 5 pm on the Friday of its week, and the course gives no extensions on them. Twelve quizzes at 0.833% each add up to about a tenth of the course, so treat them as low-stakes practice that still counts.
What happens in the labs?
There are five assessed labs: microscopy in Week 2, a snail dissection in Week 4, stomatal densities in Week 6, a fish dissection in Week 7 and plants and microbes in Week 10. Each starts with a lab quiz and ends with a lab book assessed in class, and you need the course lab manual with you.
Are there practice questions for the final exam?
Yes. The plant lectures end with study questions on their last slide, the animal weeks post practice questions with model answers, and the ecology unit posts practice exam questions with model answers for its first two lectures. This guide's practice items are original but follow the same explain and test pattern.
What is the Honours Pathway Option?
It is an optional workshop on molecular phylogenetics in the evolutionary history of animals, entered with the convener's approval. Students write a structured report stating the problem, describing analyses and giving evaluation and conclusions, and it replaces 10% of the overall course assessment. You may opt out before the last day of teaching.
How should I prepare for the final exam?
Revise unit by unit from the earliest material, because Unit 5 is furthest from the exam. For each lecture, practise explaining a mechanism, predicting what changes when it is disrupted, and naming a measurement that would test your explanation. Then sit the posted practice questions under time and compare your reasoning with the model answers.
Questions students ask in each BIOL1030 chapter
- How do you tell whether a group on a tree is monophyletic?
- Find the most recent node that joins all the members. If every lineage descending from that node is included, the group is monophyletic. If some descendants are left out it is paraphyletic, and if the members only come together through separate origins of a shared trait, with no single node of their own, it is polyphyletic. Chapter 01 · Phylogeny, Prokaryotes and Protists
- What is alternation of generations in plants?
- It is a life cycle with two multicellular stages. The haploid gametophyte produces gametes, fertilisation makes a diploid sporophyte, and the sporophyte produces spores by meiosis that grow into new gametophytes. Land plants differ in which stage is larger and longer-lived, which is why the moss you see and the fern you see belong to different generations. Chapter 02 · Plants and Fungi Colonise the Land
- Why are choanoflagellates important for understanding animal origins?
- They are the closest living relatives of animals, single-celled or colonial protists with a flagellum ringed by a collar. Sponge choanocytes have the same collar and flagellum design, so comparing the two helps reconstruct what the earliest animal cells could do before true tissues existed. Chapter 03 · Animal Origins and Early Diversification
- How much carbon do plants take up each year?
- About 123 gigatonnes of carbon a year are taken up through photosynthesis worldwide. Plant respiration and soils each release roughly 60, so the net land uptake is only a few gigatonnes, which is why small shifts in climate can turn forests from sinks into sources. Chapter 04 · Why Plants Matter and How They Are Built
- What is the difference between primary and secondary growth?
- Primary growth comes from apical meristems and makes roots, stems and leaves longer; every vascular plant has it. Secondary growth comes from the vascular cambium and cork cambium, adds wood and bark and makes organs wider, stronger and longer-lived, and it is characteristic of woody plants. Chapter 05 · Plant Growth, Meristems and Plasticity
- What makes water move into a plant cell?
- Differences in water potential. Solutes lower the solute term and a turgid cell raises the pressure term, and water always flows towards the lower total. A cell with plenty of solute but little pressure can therefore draw water in until its pressure rises and the two sides balance. Chapter 06 · Water Transport and Drought
- What is the difference between a source and a sink?
- A source exports more sugar than it uses, usually a mature leaf. A sink imports sugar, such as roots, stems, fruits, seeds and meristems. The roles change with development, so a young leaf begins as a sink and later becomes a source once it is fully expanded. Chapter 07 · Carbon Gain, Phloem and C4 and CAM Plants
- Why are Australian soils so often short of phosphorus?
- They are among the oldest soils on Earth, and long weathering has stripped nutrients away. Phosphorus has no atmospheric reservoir to replace losses, and much of what remains is chemically bound to iron, aluminium and calcium minerals, so plants face strong selection for traits that free or reach it. Chapter 08 · Soil Nutrients and Root Symbioses
- Is pollination the same as fertilisation?
- No. Pollination is the transfer of pollen from anther to stigma. The pollen must then germinate and grow a tube down the style into the ovule, and only then do sperm fuse with the egg and central cell. A flower can therefore be pollinated and still fail to set seed. Chapter 09 · Flowers, Pollination and Seeds
- How does auxin make a shoot grow towards light?
- The tip senses light from one side and auxin is redistributed to the shaded side as it moves down to the elongation zone. Auxin activates proton pumps, acidifying and loosening cell walls, so shaded cells elongate faster than lit ones and the shoot curves towards the light. Chapter 10 · Plant Signals, Timing and Stress Responses
- Why does low testosterone not always raise fertility back to normal through feedback?
- Low testosterone weakens negative feedback on the hypothalamus and pituitary, which normally pushes GnRH and LH upward. If the fault sits at the top of the axis, for example a chemical that suppresses GnRH, that upward push never happens, so sperm production stays low despite the weakened brake. Chapter 11 · Animal Reproduction, Development and Nutrition
- Why do herbivores lose weight when their gut microbes are killed?
- Their own enzymes cannot break down plant cell walls, so they rely on symbiotic microbes housed in an enlarged gut chamber, typically the caecum or colon, where fermentation happens. Without those microbes, much of the fibre passes out undigested and far less energy is extracted from the same amount of food. Chapter 12 · Digestion, Gas Exchange and Salt Balance
- Why does adrenaline speed up the heart but constrict blood vessels to the gut?
- The hormone is the same everywhere, but tissues carry different receptors and signalling machinery. Beta receptors in liver and muscle vessels mobilise glucose and dilate vessels, while alpha receptors in gut vessels activate a different pathway that contracts smooth muscle, sending blood to the muscles needed for immediate action. Chapter 13 · Animal Hormones, Neurons and Behaviour
- Why can two places with the same climate carry different vegetation?
- Because climate is not the only control. Fire can hold a site in a grassy state: grass fuels fire, fire kills tree seedlings, and the grass returns. History matters too, since lineages that never reached a region cannot appear there however suitable the conditions are. Chapter 14 · Ecology: Distributions, Niches and Populations
How to study for the exam
Plan revision around the four units and the hurdle. Start with Unit 5, the furthest from the exam: redraw the trees from the lectures, label which groups are monophyletic, paraphyletic or polyphyletic, and rehearse the endosymbiosis story and the plant and animal body plans.
Move to Unit 6 next and give it the most hours, since nine lectures sit in three weeks; for each lecture, answer its study questions in two or three sentences without notes. For Unit 7, work the posted practice questions and compare your reasoning with the model answers, checking that you named a mechanism, a prediction and a measurement each time. Finish with Unit 8, recomputing logistic growth and lambda by hand.
In the final week, sit one mixed practice set under time and read the exam information module before planning the morning. Keep a single page of definitions you must be able to state exactly, such as water potential, double fertilisation, acclimation and the realised niche, and test yourself on it every few days.
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