Evolution by Kate

  The organism EYE choose was the Celestial Eye Goldfish. It was named this because it's eye are alway pointed up making it look like its staring at the stars. This goldfish is missing a dorsal fin and has eyes that point always upward. This is caused by a genetic mutation that actually causes issues for the fish. So it is not a positive adaptation. These fish have retinal degeneration that as they age leads to blindness. I mean if I were staring up at the sun/sky my whole life, I think I would also go blind! The lack of a dorsal fin causes impaired movement while swimming. While these fish are adorable, the more I learn about them, the sadder it gets!! This is a dominant trait and all goldfish of this species are affected.  Based off the research I am finding, these fish evolved from a genetic mutation. However, they have become a known breed due to human breeding practices. This is artificial selection. There was a big split in the phylogenetic tree of these goldfish. That s...

 I decided to stray away this week from the normal reflection prompts. So I decided to talk about epistasis because I get to discuss one of my favorite things: Labrador Retrievers. Here are mine:) In module 8 we discussed epistasis. Epistasis is when the ability for a gene to be expressed is dependent on the action of another gene that modifies it. The book give the examples of labs in how they can come in many different colors. This is because different loci affect different portions of what is seen phenotypically. One loci will affect what the color pigment is. While another may affect the ability of the organism to put that pigment in a relevant tissue to show the color. My dogs are from the same litter. Their mom was a yellow lab and their dad was a brown (chocolate) lab. As you can see my dogs are black and a reddish color. It has always really interested me on how labs can come in such a variety and look so different from their litter mates. From a post made by Cornell Univer...

  Going into this class I was expecting to learn about the typical evolution that you get a glimpse of in other biology courses: Darwin's finches, decent with modification, passing traits down, etc. etc. However this class has taught me a lot more than just that. One of the biggest breakthroughs of this course for me has been showing myself that I can do coding. My brother is a software engineer and my dad is the kind of guy who can fix anything, learn anything, and do it all relatively easy. Now me...? I am the complete opposite. Problem solving is not my strong suit and that is in large part what coding is. I can sit down and study for hours. Drawing diagrams, making flashcards, reading/highlighting text is something that college has got me to be VERY good at. But problem solving? Not really. The first few R exercises for me were incredibly frustrating because I had never done anything like it and feel very stupid around technology. As the weeks have progressed, I have become a l...

If you are a Game of Thrones fan.... I hope you enjoy this. One of the most common places to see inbreeding is in plants. It results in a very narrow genotype range which is uaually caused by self fertilization when it comes to plants. Inbreeding often happens if there is only a small pool of mates to choose from or if a specific "blood line" is trying to be achieved like in the well known example of royal families. Another common situation that includes inbreeding is managed populations such as in a Zoo. However many zoo's do try to combat this by sending certain animals to another zoo to attempt to mate with a separate blood line than the orignial. While much of the focus on inbreedig is to the costs of it, there are some benefits. One benefit of inbreeding that I discussed with my group on Tuesday was that it can retain beneficiall alleles in the population. So if there is a trait that is helpful to that individual and it is something that is able to be passed ...