scopeofzoology

all-embracing terms which are often too general to have much meaning. It is derived from the
Greek 'bios', meaning life, and 'logos' - the study of. Historically, knowledge about living
things was developed somewhat independently by students of plants and students of
animals. As a result, many biologists think of two main sub-divisions of biology: botany, the
study of plants; and zoology, the study of animals. Other biologists feel that there are really
three types of organisms - plants, animals and microbes - and consider microbiology to be a
third major division of biology. This system operates in University College, Cardiff.
Another method of subdividing biology is based on what is termed an operational/ functional
approach which cuts across the divisions of animal, plant and microbe. This scheme is
sometimes referred to as the horizontal method of organisation. It works because, particularly
at a research level, the scope of biology has no boundaries. Many of the important advances,
particularly in the past few years, have been made by workers who defy categorisation into a
particular branch of biology. However, because workers have become specialised in various
branches of biology, many horizontal investigations are carried out by team research in which
zoologists, botanists, microbiologists, chemists, physicists and mathematicians collaborate.
The horizontal categories include molecular biology, cellular biology, developmental biology
organismal biology and population, or comnunity biology. Several undergraduate curricula
have been developed using one or more of these categories as the main theme and this
makes the important point that there are many legitimate ways of introducing a student to the
biological sciences at the university.
Molecular biology encompasses biochemistry and biophysics and mainly includes all of those
aspects of biology which take a molecular approach to problems and their solution. It is
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