The Beginning of Research

Now that I am done with the making of my blog, I will begin to start writing my content and posting it every 2 weeks. I learned a lot more about how to customize blogger to organize things in the way that I want. I learned that it takes me a while to finalize the design because I always see the things that need improving. It is sometimes hard to use blogger because there are few templates and they are not what I had in mind so I've struggled to make them different. My next steps are to research the topics that I have already chosen. I can use this experience for whenever else I need to make a creative blog.

Unit 8 Reflection

This Unit was about evolution and how things affect a population over time. Natural selection is a tool of evolution and it changes the allele frequency of a gene pool. Natural selection favors certain traits and those are passed on to offspring. Darwin said that there are winners and losers and the population starts to look like the winners. This was demonstrated in the Bird Beak Lab. Speciation is the rise of 2 or more species from 1 existing species. This can be caused by behavioral isolation, as seen from the Hunger Games Lab when knucklers only wanted to mate with other knucklers, geographic isolation, and temporal isolation. There is a lot of proof of evolution such as vestigial structures, which are the evolutionary leftovers of ancestors and fossils which are a big piece of evidence. Fossils can do relative dating, homologous structures, and analogous structures. The earth is extremely old and amino acids have been found in meteorites giving the idea that RNA monomers have been made spontaneously from molecules. 
I want to learn more about the proof of evolution and other theories because it is like solving the mystery of time and there are many creative theories. How did we gather this information about the different eras and epochs from fossils? I wonder about how much time the earth was empty and what the development of humans looked like. What are the drastic events that led to life on land, plants, and everything else. 

 I was ranked as being assertive, but I need to fix my collaborative skills.  It's much better once everyone gets involved in a project, rather than one person taking control and making everyone do their tasks. It is very important to find a perfect blend of being assertive, but also being a good leader, and making sure everyone feels that their ideas are felt.

Geologic Timeline Reflection

These are the periods of the Earth that seemed most important to me. During the Permian, there were several marine communities and aquatic creatures largely dominated the earth. However, there was a mass extinction at the end of the era that was the largest ever recorded, which was extremely important because it created a niche in which the dinosaurs could rule. If that extinction had never occurred, we might not be here and the world could still be a largely aquatic-ruled planet.  Another important period was the Cambrian, an explosion of life. It gave birth to many new and different species that helped pave the way to the species that we have todayA lot of fossils and other evidences of life can be found from this time, as it was a major turning point when looking at earths history. This period is the first time major groups of animals started to appear with each other, and you could find life in the sea. Another important period is the Creataceous period. In this period, the dinosaurs were still going strong, and then a mass extinction happened. This extinction led to new life, and from previous vodcasts we larned about life growing when a natural event destroys the landscape. It was definitely the most important event throughout the timeline of our Earth's history due to the fact that without it, the world would still be ruled by dinosaurs, and we wouldn't have dominated the food chain and advanced. 

The scale of earth's history is vastly immense, and it took a long time for it to evolve and become what it is today. I found it interesting how we are basically a spec on a scale for the earths lifetime. The earth was not  inhospitable of a place it was until recent years, and especially when we watched a short clip, how short we humans have inhabited the earth. All of our technological, military, and cultural advances seemed to happen over a long time, but in actuality, we appear as a mere speck on the calendar of the earth. However, on our short time on this earth, we have had a major effect,  namely, global warming and pollution. The earth's temperatures have been steadily rising due to our human interactions and if this continues, and we manage to live as long as say the dinosaurs did, then we could experience an earth that is not safe to live on anymore. I would like to know how exactly when the earth was formed and how our planet is so different from others.  Also, I wonder if there are other planets just like ours that have undergone the same process and evolved into a habitat that is capable of sustaining life. 

Week 2: Blog Name Struggle

I have come up with many topic ideas to research after I finish setting up the site. I have learned about my self that I am very indecisive and I am picky about my ideas. The setbacks I have are creative because it is taking me a while to come up with a title and logo for the blog. My next steps are working on  the layout and posting my first post about the goal of the site. I can apply my choice making skills by going with an idea and sticking with it to get stuff done on time.

Hunger Games Lab Analysis

1. In this lab, we reenacted evolution that took many many years in a short period of time. It simulated natural selection and how the best of the species survive and pass on their traits.

2. The knucklers were the best phenotype because they only mated with lncukers

3. Yes, the population did evolve. I know this because it started to look more like the "winners" which were the knucklers and pinchers. The A allele frequency dropped from 52% to 30% by the end while the a allele increased from 48% to 70%.

The graph shows that the phenotypes with little a became more prominent than A.

4. The placement of food was random. It affected who was lucky enough to start next to the food because it saves them from working for it. This is similar to a genetic rift but on a smaller scale. The outcome of who died was not random because natural natural selection specifically picks off the weakest and only leaves those who can survive the best.

5. Yes, it would be very different depending on the food. The type of traits that nature selects correspond with the best way for picking up the food in the species's niche. If the food was bigger, the pinchers would have trouble picking it up and not survive while the stumps will do better with big food. In nature, the prey of a species could change also forcing their predators to adapt to them. Say birds with small beaks are the dominant ones because they can get small bugs while the big beaked birds are barely staying alive. If some event causes the bugs to grow rapidly, then the bigger beaked birds could out-eat the small beaked birds because they could hold on to them.

6. Yes, the results would be different if there was not incomplete dominance. If there wasn't, then once the stumpys were wiped out at the beginning there would be an extinction of A alleles and little a would dominate everything 100%.

7. Natural selection favors certain phenotypes and the species evolves to look more like those certain phenotypes.

8. Knucklers only wanted to mate with other knucklers or pinchers. This changed things because no one wanted to mate with the stumpys, making the A allele go away.  This is  a form of sexual selection as seen in nature, like how species only mate with who they think is the best in order for their children to survive.

9. In evolution, the population evolves. Natural selection acts on the phenotype because individuals with the weakest traits in the species do not survive, causing the genotype of the whole species to change.

10. Does disease change phenotype or genotype?

Bird Beak Lab Conclusion

Part 1

Our claim for the first part of the lab was "individuals with better traits leave more offspring". It was supported by our data because the tweezers and chopsticks picked up the most food and left more offspring by the end. The beaks with tweezers and chopsticks both left 15 chicks and the other beaks leave 2, 3, and 4.

Our second claim was that "populations begin to look more like the winners." This was proven by how the tweezers and chopsticks dominated the resources more than other birds, taking away their chances for reproduction. This was because the tweezers and chopsticks can support their offspring with enough food and the offspring will continue to dominate.

Part 2
  In this lab, we asked the question "if natural selection occurs in a population, how do changes in selective pressures affect the evolution of that species?". We found that as time goes on, species of birds would evolve to look more like the tweezer beak birds and the chopstick beak birds because of their traits that let them pick up the most food and leave the most offspring. Our data showed that the tweezer and chopstick beak birds had the most offspring with 15 chicks each, which was about 21.4% of all the total chicks. The spoon had 14 chicks, the binder clip had 13 chips, and the scissor had 13 chicks. This data supports our claim because natural selection will cause the beaks of birds to evolve and become like the tweezer and chopstick birds so that they can have better traits.

  Even though our hypothesis was supported by our data, there could have been errors about timing and food types.
The first error is that some of the types of beaks could pick up specific types of food better than the rest, making species that go for the same niche more competitive. For example, if a binder clip can pick up macaroni the best and a tweezer could pick up rubber bands the best, and there were more rubber bands than macaroni, the tweezer would probably pick up the most food and leave more offspring. This would cause the population to start looking more like the tweezer bird and the binder clip birds would start to look like the "losers". To fix this, There should be equal amounts of each food.
The second error is the timing not being perfect, which could have caused some people to have more time and others to have less time. For instance, one person could have started picking up food earlier and they could have more time to collect food. This would cause some people to have more or less offspring than they should really have within the time allotted. Timing can be more precise by having individual timers at each table instead of just with Mr. Orre.
This lab was done to demonstrate how natural selection plays a major role in evolution of a certain species. From this lab, I learned that small change can cause a huge change in the appearance of a population. It showed more about the evolution of a species which helps me understand the concept of natural selection showing "winners" and "losers". Based on my experience from this lab I understand why nature is so competitive and how different species change.