In this update, we had three projects involved: Cladogram, Timeline, and PCR Lab Write-up
The Cladogram was a group work project and I worked with Bryce Bernales, Landon Antonio, and Cais Wang. This project was about having several pieces of small hardware, make up fake species names for them, and then would organize them onto a big piece of paper. How we organized each species is we would separate the screws, nails, plastic, metal into there own category. What my group did was that we put the plastics first in the beginning, and slowly each species evolved and it became metal. In the end, all of the species died out and they couldn't reproduce/evolve anymore. After, we did it on the big piece of paper, we would make a story as a group explaining how each species "evolved". Our story was named the "Species of Landonus". We worked on this project for about 2-3 weeks.
The second project was the Timeline and we did this in partners, and I was partnered with Brittany Fung. We would pick an organism and researched it to find it's ancestry. The organism that we picked was a horse. We would have to find out how the organism evolved and give details on how long ago each ancestor was, described on what they looked like, where they lived, and a picture of it.
The third project was the PCR lab write-up. This experiment we did as a group(Bryce, Landon, and Cais) but we each had our own DNA sample. This experiment was to help find our DNA and to determine our ancestry. This was our first lab experiment and it was different, something new. We learned what a gel does and how to read it, a buffer, a template, how to keep things sterile, and a use of a micropipette. It was an interesting experiment, although the experiment didn't successfully work.
The Cladogram was a group work project and I worked with Bryce Bernales, Landon Antonio, and Cais Wang. This project was about having several pieces of small hardware, make up fake species names for them, and then would organize them onto a big piece of paper. How we organized each species is we would separate the screws, nails, plastic, metal into there own category. What my group did was that we put the plastics first in the beginning, and slowly each species evolved and it became metal. In the end, all of the species died out and they couldn't reproduce/evolve anymore. After, we did it on the big piece of paper, we would make a story as a group explaining how each species "evolved". Our story was named the "Species of Landonus". We worked on this project for about 2-3 weeks.
The second project was the Timeline and we did this in partners, and I was partnered with Brittany Fung. We would pick an organism and researched it to find it's ancestry. The organism that we picked was a horse. We would have to find out how the organism evolved and give details on how long ago each ancestor was, described on what they looked like, where they lived, and a picture of it.
The third project was the PCR lab write-up. This experiment we did as a group(Bryce, Landon, and Cais) but we each had our own DNA sample. This experiment was to help find our DNA and to determine our ancestry. This was our first lab experiment and it was different, something new. We learned what a gel does and how to read it, a buffer, a template, how to keep things sterile, and a use of a micropipette. It was an interesting experiment, although the experiment didn't successfully work.
Reproductive isolation: Separation of species or populations so that they cannot interbreed and produce offspring
Geographic Isolation: Form of reproductive isolation in which two populations are separated physically by barriers.
Temporal Isolation: Form of reproductive isolation in which two populations reproduce at different times
Founders Effect: Change as a result of the migration of a small subgroup of a population
Natural Selection: Process by which individuals that are better suited to their environment and reproduce most successfully
Genetic Variation: Random change in frequencies that occurs in small populations
Allopatric Speciation: the original population was separated so one species turned into two
Sympatric Speciation: one species in an area that splits into two that inhabits the same space
Artificial Selection: Selective breeding of organisms for specific, desirable characteristics
Behavioral Isolation: Different times of mating, cannot mate
Overall, the cladogram I believed was kind of difficult. We argued a lot on where things should be placed, and how we should split each "organism". I personally think that we could've gotten more help and more explanation with and how to do it, but on the other hand we had a lot of freedom on how to do things. Group wise, we could've stayed focused more on the project and not worrying about what other groups were doing. Each project was unique with how each group organized the "organisms". With the timeline, it went well. My partner and I stayed focused and got done on what we needed to do. Although, I thought we could've dug deeper and found more information on our animal and the ancestry, we found mostly the basics on each one, we should've dug deeper to find more information. The PCR lab write-up was good but a little confusing. I could've gone more into depth with the things I wrote down. I am still learning on how to do lab write-ups but for the first one I didn't think I did all that bad.