These fields are further divided based on the scale at which organisms are studied and the methods used to study them: biochemistry examines the fundamental chemistry of life, molecular biology studies the complex interactions of systems of biological molecules, cellular biology examines the basic building block of all life, the cell; physiology examines the physical and chemical functions of the tissues and organ systems of an organism; and ecology examines how various organisms interrelate with their environment.
Widely varied approaches to biology generate information about phylogeny. These include the comparisons of DNA sequences conducted within molecular biology or genomics, and comparisons of fossils or other records of ancient organisms in paleontology. Biologists organize and analyze evolutionary relationships through various methods, including phylogenetics, phenetics, and cladistics. For a summary of major events in the evolution of life as currently understood by biologists, see evolutionary timeline.
This misconception was challenged by William Harvey's diction that "all life [1] from [2] egg" (from the Latin "Omne vivum ex ovo"), a foundational concept of modern biology. It means that there is an unbroken continuity of life from its initial origin to the present time.
This field overlaps with other areas of biology, particularly with genetics and biochemistry. Molecular biology chiefly concerns itself with understanding the interactions between the various systems of a cell, including the interrelationship of DNA, RNA, and protein synthesis and learning how these interactions are regulated.
Cell biology researches both single-celled organisms like bacteria and specialized cells in multicellular organisms like humans.
Appreciating the similarities and differences between cell types is particularly important in the fields of cell and molecular biology. These fundamental similarities and differences provide a unifying theme, allowing the principles learned from studying one cell type to be extrapolated and generalized to other cell types.
For example, it generally involves scientists who have special training in particular organisms such as mammalogy, ornithology, botany, or herpetology, but use those organisms as systems to answer general questions about evolution. Evolutionary biology is mainly based on paleontology, which uses the fossil record to answer questions about the mode and tempo of evolution, as well as the developments in areas such as population genetics and evolutionary theory. In the 1980s, developmental biology re-entered evolutionary biology from its initial exclusion from the modern synthesis through the study of evolutionary developmental biology. Related fields which are often considered part of evolutionary biology are phylogenetics, systematics, and taxonomy.
The term population biology is often used interchangeably with population ecology, although population biology is more frequently used when studying diseases, viruses, and microbes, while population ecology is more commonly when studying plants and animals. As can be surmised, ecology is a science that draws on several disciplines.
Source: Wikipedia > Biology
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