Unit 8 Reflection

          This unit covered many major topics. We first learned about the gene pool and allele frequency and how when a population evolves, the gene frequency changes. We also learned about the Earth's history, or it's geological timeline and how much it has changed to get to where it is now. But most importantly, we learned about evolution and its effects of it on planet Earth. I think that one of the biggest themes/essential understandings out of this whole unit is the process of natural selection and how it works in the favor of an organism who has a better phenotype than others. When we did the Hunger Games Lab, we saw that when organisms had the most favorable phenotype, they were able to reproduce and have more offspring. Their offspring then had a higher chance of having the same favorable phenotype which caused them to survive better than others. In this way, the population of organisms with that specific phenotype grows until it dominates most of the population. However, the organisms that don't have the specific trait slowly die off because they can't compete with the organisms that do have the better trait. In the end, the population of the organisms with the desirable trait start to look more like "winners" while the other organisms who weren't as lucky look more like the "losers". Another major theme of this unit was how vast the history of Earth was. Before this unit, I thought that a couple hundred years back was so long ago. I couldn't imagine what life was like without the technology and advancements that we have today. But now, I realize that we are only a speck on Earth's timeline. Us humans have only been around for a few hundred years. There have been so many major events before we were introduced to planet Earth. For example, if there had been no increase of oxygen in the atmosphere during the Ordivician period then there might only be a few or maybe even no organisms on Earth right now!
          I still want to learn more about Earth's history and go more in depth into specific eras. I think that Earth's timeline is so immense and I think it's really interesting how much humans have done in such a short amount of time. An unanswered question I have is what caused all of the mass extinctions and explosions on Earth. I also wonder about how such seemingly bad events helped so much to evolve our planet for the better.
          Since writing my Unit 7 Reflection, I have definitely tried to be more assertive. I started giving more ideas when doing projects and being much more involved. I think that before I was more on the quiet side and didn't really contribute as much as I could have, but now, I feel that I am really participating a lot more and even sometimes stepping up to be the leader. However, I still think that I have a long way to go. One thing that I can do to further improve is to try and be more of a leader during group projects but also make sure not to overpower other people and their ideas.

         

Geological Timeline Individual Reflection

          There have been many major events in Earth's history, but there a certain three that have stood out to me. I think that one of the most major events was the creation of Earth. This is arguably one of the most important events out of Earth's history because if Earth hadn't been formed by the collisions that occurred 4.6 billion years ago, there would be nothing. There would be no animals, no plants, no humans, but most importantly, there would be no life. Another major event in Earth's history was the Cambrian Explosion that happened in the Cambrian Era. During this time, there was a lot of diversification in a short amount of time. This event is significant because it introduced lots of new species and created a huge amount of diversity. The last major event was the mass extinction of dinosaurs in the Mesozoic Era because it gave way to mammals and humans. Without this event, dinosaurs would still dominate the Earth and smaller mammals would not have been able to compete against them. Us humans also wouldn't have stood a chance against the dinosaurs let alone dominate the food chain and make as many advancements as we have.

          The scale of Earth's history is massive and it took an extremely long time to become what it is now. What surprised me the most was how so much of Earth's history was so bare and empty. Earth had no life until just recently when life and diversity started growing at fast rates.

          Although humans have only been around for a short amount of time, we have made a huge impact on this Earth. We have made so many advancements in technology, math, science, and so much more. Humans have changed the planet so much, when actually, if you think about it, we are merely a speck on the timeline of Earth. 

          One question that I still have is are other planets capable of undergoing changes like Earth did to create a habitable environment capable of sustaining life. Also, if humans can contribute this much in such a short amount of time, how many more advancements/improvements can they make in the many more years to come.

Hunger Games Final Analysis

1. We competed against each other with different ways of picking up food where only some of us would survive and leave offspring. Some people had the knuckler trait, some had the pincher beak, and some had the stumpy beak. Obviously, some traits were more favorable, and those were the ones that in the end, had the highest population. We simulated evolution, natural selection, and competition in this lab.

2. I thought that the pincher beak would be the best at capturing food, but it turned out that the knuckler beaks actually got the most food. This phenotype was the best at capturing food because this specific beak allowed someone to pick up food in between their knuckles on both hands while the stumpy beak could only pick up one piece of food at a time.

3. The population did evolve. I know it evolved because the gene allele frequency changed. As the years went by, the allele frequency for "a" started to grow bigger and bigger while the frequency for the "A" grew smaller and smaller.

4. The placement of the food in this lab was random. The placement of the food had a big effect on the evolution of this population because if the food was closer to one type of bird then they would probably pick up the most food and therefore leave more offspring. However, who one mated with was not random. Pinchers could purposely mate with pinchers so that it would guarantee offspring that is a pincher as well. This would affect the evolution of the population because one type of bird could dominate the population by using this method and essentially be the "winners".

5. The results would have been different if the food was larger or smaller. If the food was smaller then the stumpy beak would have a harder time picking up the food, and if the food were larger then the stumpy beaks would be able to pick up the food more easily. For example, if the food turned into soccer balls, then the stumpy population would dominate while the knuckler and pincher birds population would diminish. However, if the food turned into gumballs, then the knuckler and pincher birds would dominate the population while the stumpy birds die out. In nature, situations like this can happen and it's all just based on luck. Specific birds might have to find a different type of food to eat, or move to a different niche with less competition and more food.

6. The results would have been different if there was not incomplete dominance because then there would be no knucklers. There would only be pinchers and stumpys. The pinchers would then become the dominant trait and the "a" frequency would grow to a huge size while the "A" would go down to a very small percentage.

7. The relationship between natural selection and evolution is that natural selection causes evolution. The best traits are chosen and the ones with that specific trait survive better and reproduce offspring. The others without the trait start to die off, so as time passes, the population of the organisms with the best traits grow.

8. Some strategies that individuals used were picking up more food than their phenotype allowed by cheating and picking up food by the handful. Some people also used their hoods as extra pockets to put the food into. These actions would have affected the allele frequency by making it somewhat inaccurate. There could have been a higher allele frequency for "a" than "A" because people had advantages over others. These behaviors are similar to the ones in nature because competition is fierce and animals will do anything and everything they can to make sure they "win".

9. In evolution the single organism is not really the one who evolves. The population is what is really evolving. The alleles in a single individual do evolve, but it's really the population that evolves because the gene pool changes to match the best traits. Natural selection acts on the phenotype of an organism, not it's genotype because their physical traits are the ones evolving. Their genes aren't changing just the allele frequency.

10. A question that I still have is if there are ways birds can "cheat" to pick up more food. I also question if there really are techniques that birds use to "cheat", what methods do they use and do birds use them a lot.

Bird Beak Lab Conclusion

Part 1: Analysis

Our claim/hypothesis for the first part of this lab was "individuals with better traits leave more offspring". This statement was supported by our data because the tweezer beak and the chopstick beak picked up the most food the fastest out of all the different types of beaks and therefore, left more offspring. The tweezer and chopstick birds both left 15 offspring while the other birds left a few less. This happened because birds need food to leave offspring, and if a bird can pick up a lot of food, then they can have more offspring. Our second claim/hypothesis was that "populations begin to look more like the winners". Our evidence supported this hypothesis because the tweezer beak bird and the chopstick beak bird will dominate the population more than other birds. This happened because the tweezer and chopstick birds can leave/support the most offspring and their populations would grow to "beat" the other species.

Part 2: Conclusion

         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 in future generations, birds would evolve to look more like the tweezer beak birds and the chopstick beak birds because of their ability to pick up the most food and leave the most offspring. Our data showed that the tweezer and chopstick beak birds had the highest number of offspring with fifteen each. They had about 21.4% of all the total chicks. The spoon had fourteen chicks, the binder clip had thirteen chicks, and the scissor had thirteen 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.

         While our hypothesis was supported by our data, there could have been errors due to the different types of food and the timing not being perfect. Some of the different types of beaks could pick up different types of food better. 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 pieces of food and therefore leave more offspring behind. This would cause the population for the tweezer bird to grow more and essentially start to look like the "winners" and the binder clip birds would start to look like the "losers". The other error of the timing not being perfect 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 ended later while another person could have started late and ended early. This would cause some people to have more or less time to pick up more food and thus cause more or less offspring than they should really have. Due to these errors, in future experiments I would recommend having the same amount of variation in the different types of food and try to have the timing as exact as possible.

         This lab was done to demonstrate how natural selection plays a role in evolution of a certain species. From this lab I learned that even the slightest change can cause a huge change in the population and the evolution of a species which helps me understand the concept of natural selection affecting evolution and population showing "winners" and "losers". Based on my experience from this lab I could apply this to another situation by knowing how natural selection plays a role in  evolution and teaching other people that evolution isn't actually as complicated as I thought it was.