Skip to main content

Blog Post #8- A Matter of Selection (Jesse Zalk)

1) The  Brassica oleracea plant, a seemingly boring specimen, does manage to have variation in itself. My team, seemingly lazy at the moment, did not want to join me to the garden excursion, so I went by myself to measure data. The data I decided to record was the width of the Brassica Oleracea and the length of the leaves on the plant (Both Kale and Brussel Sprouts). I decided that the leaf lengths had more variation then the plant height. Here is the data that I collected.
Leaf Length
Plant 1: leaf 1 - 11,5 cm
Plant 1: leaf 2 - 9.5 cm
Plant 1: leaf 3 - 13.5 cm
Plant 1: leaf 4 -  10.5 cm
Plant 1: leaf 5 - 11 cm
Plant 1: leaf average - 11.2 cm
Plant 2: leaf 1 - 9.5 cm
Plant 2: leaf 2 - 8 cm
Plant 2: leaf 3 - 8.5 cm
Plant 2: leaf 4 - 10 cm
Plant 2: leaf 5 - 11 cm
Plant 2: leaf average - 9.4 cm


Plant 3: leaf 1 - 14.4 cm
Plant 3: leaf 2 - 13.4 cm
Plant 3: leaf 3 - 12.8 cm
Plant 3: leaf 4 - 13.7 cm
Plant 3: leaf 5 - 14.1 cm
Plant 3: leaf average - 13.68
Leaf Width
Plant 1: leaf 1 - 9 cm
Plant 1: leaf 2 - 8.5 cm
Plant 1: leaf 3 - 9.75 cm
Plant 1: leaf 4 - 10 cm
Plant 1: leaf 5 - 10.5
Plant 1: leaf width average 9.55 cm
Plant 2: leaf 1 - 8.5 cm
Plant 2: leaf 2 - 7 cm
Plant 2: leaf 3 - 8.5 cm
Plant 2: leaf 4 - 10 cm
Plant 2: leaf 5 - 9.5 cm
Plant 2: leaf width average 8.7 cm
Plant 3: leaf 1 - 6.4 cm
Plant 3: leaf 2 - 10.4 cm
Plant 3: leaf 3 - 7.8 cm
Plant 3: leaf 4 - 8.7 cm
Plant 3: leaf 5 - 8.9 cm
Plant 3: leaf width average: 7.84 cm
Plant Ratio
Plant 1: leaf average - 11.2 : 9.55 = 1.173 (Brussels Sprouts)
Plant 2 leaf average - 9.4 : 8.7 = 1.080 (Smaller Brussels Sprouts)

Plant 3 leaf average - 13.68 : 7.84 = 1.745 (Kale)

2) I think that the variation in the plant comes from reproductive isolation. Temporal isolation, behavioral isolation, geographic isolation, ecological isolation, and mechanical isolation are all types of reproductive isolation. Temporal isolation, which is isolation because of animals mating seasons not matching up. I do not think that this relates to the plant, as it doesn't have anything to do with mating really. Behavioral isolation is when two animals can't mate due to behavior, which does not apply, as I don't think plants have sex. Geographic Isolation could perhaps apply to the plant, as it is when two species are isolated due to geographical reasons. Perhaps plant species grown in a certain climate can have larger or smaller leaves. Mechanical isolation is when animals can not mate as their genitals do not fit together to properly have sex. I don't think this applies here, because plants do not mate or have genitals used for reproduction through mating. This leads me to believe that if a form of reproductive isolation were to affect this plant, it would be geographical isolation. Other reasons for variation in the plant could be Natural Selection, Meiosis, and Mutations. Natural selection is a theory provided by Charles Darwin that states that individual organisms with mutations suited to the environment end up surviving. Maybe the difference in leaf lengths is a Mutation that leads into Natural Selection. Perhaps shorter leaves would lower the plants chance of being eaten, allowing it to survive. Meiosis and mutations could possibly affect the Brassica Oleracea by making them more diverse. Meiosis is the process of sex cells being made. Meiosis produces a variety of sex cells. Different to Mitosis, where cells are exactly replicated. Mutations make variation possible because no species would ever change without them. Without mutations, no species would have evolved from the common ancestor. Mutations can cause the Brassica Oleracea to appear different in the phenotype, or even in the genotype, perhaps affecting the leaf length.

3) The part in the plant that seemed the most consistent was the thickness of the leaves. The thickness on the leaves is pretty much the same on every leaf. This may seem obvious, but the reproductive organs in the plant were the same as well, as they were all the same species. This falls in line with reproductive isolation, where the reproductive organs have to be similar to "Reproduce", which also applies to the Brassica Oleracea.



4) A main way to get a characteristic or phenotype trait to appear different is through Natural Selection. If the plant or animal no longer requires the specific characteristic, this trait can be changed through Natural Selection. For example, if dogs are hunting purple mice, the purple characteristic is no longer benefiting them. Through mutation, a mouse can get blue skin. The blue skin would have the mice survive by camouflage. Eventually, the purple mice would die because they do not have a hidden sort of power from the dogs in the form of camouflage.. The blue mice will survive and eventually the entire population will become blue. Plant breeders would have to geographically isolate different populations of Brassica Oleracea in order for them to exhibit different heights. By geographically isolating them, one group of Brassica Oleracea will remain the same, for the most part, and the other will now be isolated and will have to adapt to a new environment, where an adaptation might be that they have to change the height of themselves. Not that plants can change their height on command, but a beneficial mutation to the plants would be to either be taller or shorter in a different environment.




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Blog Post #8- A Matter of Selection (Colin McCombs)

W hile studying our   Brassica oleracea plants in the   WGHS GOLD Main Garden me and my team discovered and observed a lot about the plants. We found that the shape size and texture of the different plants varied in the garden the most. Some of the plants had smooth thick ruffled leaves, some had hairy ruffled leaves ,and some had hairy flat leaves. All of the leaves also varied in size along with texture and collected this data by observing and taking measurements from the Brassica oleracea in the garden.  This is a picture of the plant #1 leaf. From the picture you can see that this leaf is very smooth and thick and doesn't have any hairs or spines. It is a lighter green color with a blue hue and is very ruffled especially around the plant leaves edges. We measured the length of this leaf and it came in at 13.3 cm which is bigger than some of the plants but not as big as the ones you will see later. This is a picture of the plant #2 leaf. This leaf is very ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Blog Post #6

1) My groups plant has been getting larger and growing over the course of the past few months. It has been preforming the process of photosynthesis to add biomass and the amount of resources available to the plant. Photosynthesis is one of the main ways a plant comes to thrive in it's environment, this is when plants take sunlight to convert CO2 into O2 and high energy sugar. Despite the fact that it's winter right now and the sun isn't out as much, our plants have still been able to take the available light energy and use it in photosynthesis. Another big process that is occurring to allow our plants to grow is known as Mitosis. Mitosis is the replication and division of cells inside a living organism to allow that organism to grow and stay healthy. Mitosis is also vital to allowing space for new cells to take up a spot in the organism, as the organisms grow and mature they'll need more cells to keep up with the rapid advances in size and functions. This is made especi...
Post a Comment
Read more

Blog post #7

Fertilization occurs in flowering plants through the process of fertilization. The center of the flower has long thin filaments with anthers at the top. This is called the stamen. Four pollen sacks are located in the plants anthers which contain MMCs, Micro Mother Cells. Each of the pollen sacks produces eight pollen grains, the sperm cells from the MMC. Once the pollen grains inside each of the sacks are ready the anthers will burst open vomiting the sticky pollen onto the flowers stamen in a process called dehiscence. The flowers bright colorful pedals lure insects inside to drink its nectar, located at the flowers base. Once the insects climb into the flower the sticky pollen from the anthers gets stuck on its feet, legs, or body. In the process of cross pollination the insect that collects this sticky pollen will transfer it to another flower pollinating it in the process. In the process of self pollination the pollen will be moved from the stamen to the pistol/carpal of the flowe...
Post a Comment
Read more