Post No. 8: A Matter Of Selection

When you think of natural selection, you might imagine Charles Darwin's finches or animals on a wild savanna in a far-off land. However, you can find examples of natural selection in your garden.

Natural selection can affect the physique of a plant or animal and can change the behaviors of a population or a species. As evidenced in the Brassica oleracia plants that our class has grown, many of the plants have the same flowers. However, in the wild these plants can be extremely diverse and yet still share a similar DNA makeup.

In our class garden most of the Brassica oleracia are the same height, but plants in a certain planter are much taller than the rest. I believe this may be because these plants have grown to a size where they are able to fend off competing plants. However, in an adjacent planter, most of the Brassica oleracia have either had their growth stunted or been killed off.

Other differences between the plants include the amount of flowers, this can be attributed to a plant creating a more aggressive pollination tactic to snuff out the competition. The reason for this is that, the more flowers a plant has, the more chances it has to pass on it's DNA.

Though our Brassica oleracia plants are capable of producing a variety if different colored flowers, the ones in our garden are all the same, likely due to the fact that they come from the same seed packet and have been subjected to the same conditions -- soil, sunlight, weather, water, etc.

If a breeder were in need of a certain trait on a Brassica oleracia plant, they would first need to isolate the gene that trait is linked to. The breeder then would have to inject  the gene into a seed or splice it into the DNA sequence. After this the only step is to wait for the seed to mature and hope for the best.

Post No.7: Plant Dissection.

Dissections are inherently important to science. Though you may not always be cutting into an animal, that doesn't rule out the fact that a dissection allows a person to understand and interact with the lesson. As evidenced by the title of this blog post, our class has conducted a plant dissection. The pictures of a Broccoli flower's different organelles  serve as a timeline of the dissection.

An overhead view of a Broccoli flower.
From this view, you can see the very tips of the
Anthers emerging from just beyond the veil of the
flower's petals.

This an Anther, which functions as the male reproductive
organ and is where pollen is produced. The pollen is released from the
Anthers and travels to a nearby plant, where it descends down the Stigma
and into the Ovules [Below].

This is the Stigma, the female reproductive organ, of the Broccoli
 flower, where the pollen travels down the shaft and enters
the ovaries [Below].

This is a close-up of the ovary of the Broccoli flower. Notice the
 small, white jellybean shaped objects, these are the Ovaries,
which are where the flower's offspring develop.

As shown in the photographs above, flower reproduction is first started by the Stigma, the male reproductive organ, which releases the pollen. The pollen then travels to the stigma, and being stuck to the tip, travels down the tube of the stigma, entering the ovules and pollinating the flower. When the time for reproduction arrives, the flower then produces pollen and the cycle repeats.

Post No. 6: How Does Your Garden Grow?

Upon observing the growth of my group's Broccoli plant several weeks ago, various things became clear including that the plant was slowly growing and being outpaced by other plants and weeds. Though the plant was growing at a snail's pace, it was still growing and adding biomass by using the carbon molecules left over from photosynthesis, cell division  and cellular respiration. However as of 4/16/18, our group has no plant as it has either expired or accidentally pulled.

Broccoli plant's site as of 4/16/18.

Broccoli plant shortly after being planted.

  Continuing on to the subject of Phosphoglycerate kinase (PKG) and RuBisCo, if a plant were in need of more PKG it would need to activate the PKG1 gene, this gene includes the instructions for creating the PKG enzyme through glycosis and is found in various cells and tissues throughout the plant structure. However, if a plant were in need of RuBisCo, it would need to initiate photorespiration and photosynthesis which in turn would produce RuBisCo.