Biology (Raven), 10th Edition

About the Book

COMMITTED TO EXCELLENCE

With the release of the tenth edition, Raven & Johnson’s Biology enters a new era. This edition provides an unmatched comprehensive text fully integrated with state-of-the-art digital resources. The material in the text is organized around learning outcomes keyed to major biological concepts, which provide a framework for understanding the ever-expanding universe of biological knowledge. An inquiry-based approach with robust, adaptive tools for discovery and assessment in both text and digital resources provide the intellectual challenge needed to promote student critical thinking and ensure academic success. A major strength of this hallmark tenth edition is assessment across multiple levels of Bloom’s taxonomy that develops critical thinking and problem solving skill in addition to comprehensive factual knowledge. McGraw-Hill’s Connect platform offers a powerful suite of online tools including LearnSmart that adapts to student needs over time. The adaptive learning system helps students learn faster, study efficiently, and retain more knowledge of key concepts.

The tenth edition continues our tradition of providing the student with clear learning paths that emphasize data analysis and quantitative reasoning. Embedded eBook resources allow just-in-time exploration of major themes like evolution from directly within the eBook. Additional embedded eBook resources link to asides that delve more deeply into quantitative aspects.

The author team is experienced and fully committed to student learning and producing the best possible text for both students and faculty. Lead author Kenneth Mason (University of Iowa) has taught majors biology for more than 20 years at three major public universities. Jonathan Losos (Harvard University), a leading evolutionary biology researcher, has taught both undergraduate and graduate courses in biology for 20 years. Susan Rundell Singer (Carleton College) is a 26-year veteran science educator deeply involved in science education policy on a national level. As a team, we continually strive to improve the text by integrating the latest cognitive and best practices research with methods that are known to positively affect learning. We have multiple features that are focused on scientific inquiry, including an increased quantitative emphasis in the Scientific Thinking features. We continue to use the concise, accessible, and engaging writing style of past editions while maintaining the clear emphasis on evolution and scientific inquiry that have made this a leading textbook of choice for majors biology students. Our emphasis on evolution combined with integrated cell and molecular biology and genomics offers our readers a student-friendly text that is modern and well balanced.

The tenth edition continues to employ the aesthetically stunning art program that the Raven and Johnson Biology text is known for. Complex topics are represented clearly and succinctly, helping students to build the mental models needed to understanding biology.

Insights into the diversity of life that are provided by molecular tools have led to a reorganization of these topics in the tenth edition. This entire unit reflects the most current research on eukaryotic phylogenies, blending molecular, morphological, and development viewpoints. Nuclear reprogramming in stem cells, gene expression, and the importance of small RNAs in gene regulation continue to shape our treatment of these topics. These are just a few examples of the many changes in the tenth edition of Biology that provide students with scientifically accurate context, historical perspective, and relevant supporting details essential to a modern understanding of life science.

As the pace of scientific discovery continues to provide new insights into the foundation of life on Earth, our author team will continue to use every means possible to ensure students are as prepared as possible to engage in biological topics. Our goal now, as it has always been, is to ensure your success.

Our Consistent Themes
It is important to have consistent themes that organize and unify a text. A number of themes are used throughout the book to unify the broad-ranging material that makes up modern biology. This begins with the primary goal of this textbook to provide a comprehensive understanding of evolutionary theory and the scientific basis for this view. We use an experimental framework combining both historical and contemporary research examples to help students appreciate the progressive and integrated nature of science.

Biology Is Based on an Understanding of Evolution
When Peter Raven and George Johnson began work on Biology in 1982 they set out to write a text that presented biology the way they taught in their classrooms—as the product of evolution. We bear in mind always that all biology “only makes sense in the light of evolution”; so this text is enhanced by a consistent evolutionary theme that is woven throughout the text, and we have enhanced this theme in the tenth edition.

The enhanced evolutionary thread can be found in obvious examples such as the two chapters on molecular evolution, but can also be seen throughout the text. As each section considers the current state of knowledge, the “what” of biological phenomenona, they also consider how each system may have arisen by evolution, the “where it came from” of biological phenomenona.

We added an explicit phylogenetic perspective to the understanding of animal form and function. This is most obvious in the numerous figures containing phylogenies in the form and function chapters. The diversity material is supported by the most up-to-date approach to phylogenies of both animals and plants. Together these current approaches add even more evolutionary support to a text that set the standard for the integration of evolution in biology. Our approach allows evolution to be dealt with in the context in which it is relevant. The material throughout this book is considered not only in terms of present structure and function, but how that structure and function may have arisen via evolution by natural selection.

The emphasis on evolution is expanded in the eBook. Because a textbook limits content to a specific length, examples or additional information related to evolution cannot always be included in the printed book. The digital environment lifts these restrictions and has allowed us the opportunity to include interesting and instructional evolution material in the eBook. The topics that are supported by additional examples and information on the evolutionary aspects of a concept are highlighted with the inclusion of an “evolution” icon in the text. This icon is associated with a link in the eBook that reveals this additional material.

Biology Uses the Methods of Scientific Inquiry
Another unifying theme within the text is that knowledge arises from experimental work that moves us progressively forward. The use of historical and experimental approaches throughout allow the student not only to see where the field is now, but more importantly, how we arrived here. The incredible expansion of knowledge in biology has created challenges for authors in deciding what content to keep, and to what level an introductory text should strive. We have tried to keep as much historical context as possible and to provide this within an experimental framework consistently throughout the text.

We use a variety of approaches to expose the student to scientific inquiry. We use our Scientific Thinking figures to walk through an experiment and its implications. These figures always use material that is relevant to the story being told. Data are also provided throughout the text, and our new Data Analysis questions ask students to interpret these data. Students are also provided with Inquiry questions to stimulate critical thinking about the material throughout the book. The Data Analysis questions deal directly with data in figures or the text, while the Inquiry questions are more conceptual. This combination will allow the student experience in interpreting data, and lead the student to question the material in the text as well. Embedded eBook resources allow just-in-time exploration of quantitative aspects of the science. Quantitative Asides present in the eBook are indicated with a “quantitative” icon in the text. This icon in the eBook links to asides that delve more deeply into quantitative aspects of the topic under discussion.

Biology Is an Integrative Science
The explosion of molecular information has reverberated throughout all areas of biological study. Scientists are increasingly able to describe complicated processes in terms of the interaction of specific molecules, and this knowledge of life at the molecular level has illuminated relationships that were previously unknown. Using this cutting-edge information, we more strongly connect the different areas of biology in this edition.

One example of this integration concerns the structure and function of biological molecules—an emphasis of modern biology. This edition brings that focus to the entire book, using this as a theme to weave together the different aspects of content material with a modern perspective. Given the enormous amount of information that has accumulated in recent years, this emphasis on structure and function provides a necessary thread integrating these new perspectives into the fabric of the traditional biology text.

Although all current biology texts have added a genomics chapter, our text was one of the first to do so. This chapter has been updated, and we have an additional chapter on the evolution of genomes. More importantly, the results from the analysis of genomes and the proteomes they encode are presented throughout the book wherever this information is relevant. This allows a more modern perspective throughout the book rather than limiting it to a few chapters. Examples, for instance, can be found in the diversity chapters, where classification of some organisms were updated based on new findings revealed by molecular techniques.

This systems approach to biology also shows up at the level of chapter organization. We introduce genomes in the genetics section in the context of learning about DNA and genomics. We then come back to this topic with an entire chapter at the end of the evolution unit where we look at the evolution of genomes, followed by a chapter on the evolution of development, which leads into our unit on the diversity of organisms.

We’re excited about the tenth edition of this quality textbook providing a learning path for a new generation of students. All of us have extensive experience teaching undergraduate biology, and we’ve used this knowledge as a guide in producing a text that is up to date, beautifully illustrated, and pedagogically sound for the student. We’ve also worked to provide clear explicit learning outcomes, and more closely integrate the text with its media support materials to provide instructors with an excellent complement to their teaching.

UNDERSTAND BIOLOGY WITH THE HELP OF...

Integrated Learning Outcomes

Each section begins with specific Learning Outcomes that represent each major concept. At the end of each section, the Learning Outcomes Review serves as a check to help students confirm their understanding of the concepts in that section. Questions at the end of the Learning Outcomes Review ask students to think critically about what they have read.

The Learning Continues Online

The questions in Connect are tagged to the Learning Outcomes in the text so that the online assignments and tests can be more closely correlated with the material in the textbook. The online eBook in McGraw-Hill ConnectPlus provides students with clear understanding of concepts through a media-rich experience. Embedded animations bring key concepts to life. Also, the eBook provides an interactive experience with the Learning Outcome Review questions.

NEW! Evolutionary Asides are inserted at relevant places in the eBook. The student links to this online content with the Evolutionary Aside eBook icon found in the text. The Evolutionary Asides provide additional examples or discussions of evolutionary topics related to the textual discussion.

APPLY YOUR KNOWLEDGE WITH...

Scientific Thinking Art

Key illustrations in every chapter highlight how the frontiers of knowledge are pushed forward by a combination of hypothesis and experiment. These figures begin with a hypothesis, then show how it makes explicit predictions, tests these by experiment and finally demonstrates what conclusions can be drawn, and where this leads. These provide a consistent framework to guide the student in the logic of scientific inquiry. Each illustration concludes with open-ended questions to promote scientific inquiry.

NEW! Data Analysis Questions

It’s not enough that students learn concepts and memorize scientific facts, a biologist needs to analyze data and apply that knowledge. Data Analysis questions inserted throughout the text challenge students to analyze data and Interpret experimental results, which shows a deeper level of understanding.

Inquiry Questions

Questions that challenge students to think about and engage in what they are reading at a more sophisticated level.

NEW! Quantitative Question Bank in Connect

Developing quantitative reasoning skills is important to the success of today’s students. In addition to the Question Bank and Test Bank in Connect a separate bank of quantitative questions is readily available for seamless use in homework/practice assignments, quizzes, and exams. These algorithmic-style questions provide an opportunity for students to more deeply explore quantitative concepts and to experience repeated practice that enables quantitative skill building over time.

NEW! Quantitative Asides In the eBook

Quantitative Asides are inserted at relevant places in the eBook. The student links to this online content with the Quantitative Aside eBook icon found in the text. The Quantitative Asides provide additional examples or expanded discussions of a quantitative aspect of the topic under discussion.

SYNTHESIZE AND TIE IT ALL TOGETHER WITH...

End-of-Chapter Conceptual Assessment Questions

Thought-provoking questions at the end of each chapter tie the concepts together by asking the student to go beyond the basics to achieve a higher level of cognitive thinking.

Integrated Study Quizzes

Study quizzes have been integrated into the ConnectPlus eBook for students to assess their understanding of the information presented in each section. End-of-chapter questions are linked to the answer section of the text to provide for easy study. The notebook feature allows students to collect and manage notes and highlights from the eBook to create a custom study guide.