Errata in George Johnson, "The Living World", 6th edition
Chapter 1 Table 1.1: The diagrams should be improved. Flow of energy should include sun and producer, not just an eagle.
There should also be a better illustration for homeostasis than a hippo.
"Cooperation" should be changed to the broader "Symbiosis".
Figure 1.7:
This diagram is too complex; should be just 1 loop. I still use a diagram from our old textbook to illustrate
this.
Chapter 6 Figure 6.1:
should show heat being released.
Figure 6.3:
should also show heat being released as entropy increases. Should also use a better example.
Chapter 7
Illustrations such as those on p. 124-125 are too large to be useful when projected in a classroom.
The photosynthesis overview diagram on p. 125
should show water being released from the Calvin cycle to be consistent with the equation.
Figure 7.9:
proton pump should be labeled, to be consistent with figure 8.10.
Chapter 10 Figure 10.6:
this chapter describes a "metaphase plate", whereas chapter 9 describes this as a "plane".
Chapter 11 Figure 11.2:
This diagram does not resemble a pea flower, should show the "wing" petals as well.
Also, be consistent in terminology of the flower parts: the corresponding female part of the anther is the stigma,
not the carpel.
Figure 11.7:
the shading in the Punnett square implies that the heterozygous phenotype is the same as that of the homozygous recessive;
should be like this.
Figure 11.21:
"white-eye gene" -> "white-eye allele"; "red-eye gene" -> "red-eye allele".
Figure 11.23
should also illustrate nondisjunction in meiosis II.
Table 11.2: "homogenistic acid" -> "homogentisic acid", but what's the point of using this obscure compound to illustrate recessive traits?
Chapter 12 Figure 12.9
shows 2 DNA polymerase molecules, one on leading and lagging strands;
this should be one polymerase holoenzyme dimer, with lagging strand looped at the replication fork.
Figure 12.11
shows a mutation in DNA from CCT to ACT? This will NOT lead to a change from Proline to Threonine.
Instead, what probably should change in the DNA is the complementary strand from GGA to TGA,
leading to a change in the mRNA from CCU (Proline) to ACU (Threonine).
The old figure 9.23
from the 4th edition comes closer to illustrating this.
Also, mutations are now lumped with DNA replication in chapter 12.
The effect of mutations on proteins cannot be explained without first discussing translation,
which is now in chapter 13. Mutations should be moved to chapter 13, after translation.
Chapter 13 Figure 13.6:
codons and anticodons should be labeled
Chapter 14 Figure 14.8
discusses reverse transcriptase, but this enzyme is not defined until chapter 19.
Figure 14.11
discusses viruses, but virus structure is not defined until chapter 19.
Chapter 15 Figure 15.5:
Tetradon -> Tetraodon.
Page 278,
text accompanying figure 15.4 states humans and pufferfish share a common ancestor 230 MYA.
This more recent than the human/bird divergence stated on page 284 below. Perhaps this should be 430 MYA?
Page 284:
The diagram implies humans and birds share a more recent common ancestor (240 MYA) than monotremes, which are mammals
and should diverge from humans much more recently, maybe 120 MYA.
Transposons video:
this video shows an atypical transposon mediated by a bacterial plasmid;
this is a poor choice to illustrate transposons in the human genome.
Chapter 17 The diagrams for Table 17.2
are very poor when enlarged individually and projected in class.
There is no explanation of how mechanical isolation applies to the organisms illustrated here - are they copepods?
Figure 17.5:
There is no explanation of how the horse's bones are homologous with those of the others'.
The caption should be changed from "vertebrate limbs" to "mammalian limbs".
Figure 17.14c:
Movement of flies toward light should be phototaxis, not phototropism.
Add a figure to illustrate bottleneck effect.
Chapter 18 Figure 18.5:
"No tail" is not a shared derived character between gorillas and humans, just as "no nucleus" cannot be used to form a
cladistic relationship between Bacteria and Archaea. Perhaps "opposable thumb"?
Chapter 36 Figure 36.8:
caption "Each sperm possesses a long tail" -> "Each sperm possesses a flagellum".
Chapter 37 Figure 37.12:
claims to be "plotted on a logarithmic scale" but this is hard to believe; what are the units?
Figure 37.13:
caption "Many flowers have coevolved" -> "Many flowering plants have coevolved".
Figure 37.27:
caption "Monarch butterflies ... milkweeds and dogbanes...". Monarchs feed on milkweeds but not on dogbanes.
Chapter 38 Figure 38.2:
caption "The path of energy passes from one trophic level to another and back again".
Energy cannot go "back" among trophic levels.
Figure 38.7:
Add "condensation" to water cycle.
Chapter 39 Give better examples for sensitization and habituation (I use fan noise from the classroom projector),
and include a figure to illustrate both.
Add figures to illustrate classical ans operant conditioning.
Chapter 40 Add figures to illustrate overexploitation, introduced species, and greenhouse effect.
Figure 40.19:
caption "The flying fox is a keystone species in many Old World tropical islands."
The South Pacific is not considered "Old World".
The discussion on ethanol as a biomass fuel seems like an unabashed infomercial from agribusiness,
with no mention of negative environmental impacts or other sources for biomass than traditional farm crops like corn.
P. 797: Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis affects the keratin, not "chitinous" parts of frog skin.