Resource Competitions

Hey! My name is Cassy Cook. I was born in Kansas, lived here in Olathe until the end of 2nd grade. Then I moved up to Columbus, NE. Lived there until the end of 8th grade. During the eighth grade I fractured my wrist during a track meet. It wasn’t classified as a break so I still have my record of never having broken a bone or had to get stitches or anything like that. With the exception of when I had my arm in a sling for two weeks due to unsportsmanlike conduct by my friend Derek before the championship tennis game, that record is still intact. Then I moved back to Olathe in 9th grade and have lived here ever since.

Animals around the world compete for resources every day. From tigers in the Serengeti to ants in the fields, resources are limited things needed for everyday life. The tiger competes with its herd and other herds for gazelle, deer, and other animals that they are able to catch. A sugar glider will challenge another mammal when it feels that its food source is threatened. The berries that some birds eat are constantly being eaten and damaged by ants, flies, gnats, ticks and other small insects. Darwin’s finches are all adapted to eat different things. Why do you think that is? It’s because the amount that a bird eats is so extraordinary that there isn’t enough food in the world for every bird to eat the same things. A herd of lions may be responsible for taking down an elephant but how many of the lions will actually make a meal out of the elephant? Odds are that everyone will get at least one bite of it but only one or two will get a full meal.
However, animals are not the only creatures that compete for resources. People and governments and countries themselves compete every day. China and India, right this very second, are in a ‘battle’ of sorts for the oil rigs and wells that were previously shared between these countries. People are turning against one another in the campaign for this natural resource (oil). America trades with many countries like China, Japan, Taiwan, Canada, and Mexico for our resources. We trade grain and other crops for things such as wool, textiles, wine, rum, cheap labor and rice. These trade channels are what makes it so America doesn’t have to go and compete for the resources that keep our nation fortified. That and the act that we are the most hated country because of our wealth yet we have the most beneficial allies is nothing short of remarkable as we get the vast majority of our resources without having to fight for them.
So now I hope that it’s clear that every species and every Genus competes for resources. It is not just animals and it is not just humans, everything competes in order to survive. That’s just the way of the world.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/m87842230542pm44/
http://www.lairweb.org.nz/tiger/hunting8.html
http://prettypets.com/product_info.php/cPath/32/products_id/81
http://www.paulnoll.com/Oregon/Birds/survive-foraging.html
http://www.rit.edu/~rhrsbi/GalapagosPages/DarwinFinch.html
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/11/20/news/china.php
http://eclecticsanonymous.wordpress.com/2007/02/01/130-countries-hate-america/

Sarah Cope -Genetic Drift

Sarah Cope is a junior at Olathe North High. she plays the violin and loves theater, when she grows up she wishes to be a orchestra teacher, or a acting teacher if orchestra doesn't work out.


Genetic drift—along with natural selection, mutation, and migration—is one of the basic mechanisms of evolution.

In each generation, some individuals may, just by chance, leave behind a few more descendents than other individuals. The genes of the next generation will be the genes of the “lucky” individuals, not necessarily the healthier or stronger individuals. That, is genetic drift. It happens to ALL populations—there’s no avoiding the vagaries of chance.

Sometimes genetic drift can be useful at times such as increaseing the inbreeding coefficient and homozygosity, but in other times when there are too many reductions in the population that is called the bottleneck. Drift is probably common in populations that undergo regular cycles of extinction and recolonization. This is extremely important to ecosystems, where plants and pathogens are likely to have a patchy distribution where each patch is a small population.

genetic drift "random drift" or "random genetic drift." The sampling error can occur in at least three ways. Try considering these in the context of pathogen populations in plant pathosystems:

Small recurring population size occurs when there are not many host plants in the area to infect, or when the environment is not optimal for infection.
A genetic bottleneck, or severe reduction in population size, occurs when the plant population is removed (e.g. harvest of the crop), or when the environment changes to prevent infection of the plant or to kill the pathogen directly (e.g. periods of hot, dry weather or a deep freeze).
A founder effect occurs when a small number of individuals, representing only a small fraction of the total genetic variation in a species, starts a new population. A founder event occurs when one or two infected plants slip through a quarantine and introduce a disease into an area where the disease did not previously exist.

Genetic drift also has two significant longer-term evolutionary effect. Genetic drift can facilitate speciation (creating a new species) by allowing the accumulation of non-adaptive mutations that can facilitate population subdivision. Drift also facilitates the movement of a population from a lower fitness plateau to a higher fitness plateau according to the shifting balance theory of Sewall Wright.

Sewall Wright is considered as Darwin's successor. Having a PhD in biology, the idea of genetic drift came, when he published his book called "Evolution and the Genetics of Populations"

Examples of genetic drift are sometimes hard to find, but there are some that are right under our noses.

1. Breeding of dogs
If you look at a chart of dogs, you can see there are probably more than a hundred and fifty types of dogs. All most likely coming from the same dog at a certain time in the past.

2. Breeding of Live Stock
Farmers work with live stock eveyday, tyring to breed the best cattle they can. They have to think about what cow do they want to breed with the bull.

3. Breeding of horses
Specialy race horses. Owners have to look at the mare or stallion to see if they are strong enough to mate with another to pass down the right genes.

Links:
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/evo101/IIIDGeneticdrift.shtml
http://www.apsnet.org/education/AdvancedPlantPath/Topics/PopGenetics/Pages/geneticdrift.htm
http://www.nndb.com/people/234/000103922/

ABOUT ME:
Hi! My name is Brandy Alderman-Oler, but most people call me AO (cuz its a lot shorter) I am really interested in science, you might even think I am a science nerd because this year I am in 5 hours of science! I find it really interesting because this is a subject that NO ONE knows everything about, there is always room to learn and the information is not right there, it’s like a puzzle that we all are piecing together. With all of that said you are probably not surprised when I say I want to be a science teacher and more specifically a high school biology teacher. And that’s me :)

Survival of the fittest:
We hear this phrase often, about wild life, in sports, and even in businesses. The biggest and best will triumph. Survival of the fittest is a phrase which sums up the idea of natural competition for predominance and resources. It was originally used in studies and writings done by Herbert Spencer in his: Principles of Biology of 1864, Herbert Spencer compared his ideas of economics with Charles Darwin's theories of evolution by what Darwin called natural selection.



Animals in the wild have to fight for what they want. There is only a limited amount of resources and every one is competing for what there is. For example, if there are 2 lions fighting for the same prey, the lion that can run the fastest will get the food. This is an example of survival of the fittest on a small scale, we see this happening in nature every day, however, if we were to spend years observing animals we might find a better example. We watched a movie earlier this year about a man that went to Alaska to study the wolves and caribou, it was thought that the wolves were just eating them to extinction, but what the man found was that the wolves were just helping the process of survival of the fittest by weeding out the sick.
Animals that have not adapted to fit the changes of their habitat throughout the years will not survive. This is why animals go extinct. Animals such as the Wyoming toad are endangered because they have not adapted to the changes of Wyoming. Animals adapt as do people and everything else in the world. This is the base of evolution. Humans have made adaptations through out the thousands of year we have been around. As a result, our average age has become larger and larger throughout the centuries. this is a prime example of survival of the fittest.
The phrase is a metaphor, not a scientific description; and it is not generally used by biologists, who almost unanimously prefer to use the phrase "natural selection"

Natural Selection

My name is Amanda and I’m a senior this year at Olathe North. I’m pretty excited to graduate because I’m ready to get out of high school. Next year I plan on attending K-State and studying Veterinarian Medicine. I work a lot but when I’m not working, I like spending time with my family/friends, reading, and just being me. I love being outside because I’m a nature freak. I love fishing and just going on walks. My favorite time of year is the fall because all the pretty scenery. I took student naturalist this year because of my passion for animals and my desire to expand my knowledge. I have learned a lot and am hoping to learn more before the end of the year.
Even though life is never perfect and not always easy, it is a gift given to each and every one of us to live the way we want. Each individual human being is different and unique in many different ways. Naturally, we all have different tastes in music, food, life styles, jobs, and much more. If everyone liked the same things, there would most likely not be nearly enough resources to satisfy everyone. The same goes with animals. Each animal is different in its own way due to an adaptation or niche. Certain animals are more efficient at what they do and more likely to survive and thrive than others. This would be a process known as call Natural Selection. Natural Selection is the process by which forms of life having traits that better enable them to adapt to specific environmental pressures, as predators, changes in climate, or competition for food or mates, will tend to survive and reproduce in greater numbers than others of their kind, thus ensuring the perpetuation of those favorable traits in succeeding generations. In simpler terms, this means that certain things about an animal allow it to survive in a certain area better than another.
The term natural selection was introduced by Charles Darwin in 1859. Darwin was an English naturalist who provided evidence that all forms of life evolved over time due to natural selection. Darwin provided huge amounts of scientific evidence that remains to this day to be a very large part of the foundation of biology. An example of natural selection would be in the case of pepper moths which pictures are featured above. These peppered moths were found new English industrial cities around the 19th century. The moths had varying wing coloration which allowed some to survive in certain areas better than others. When the darker colored moths landed on trees or blackened surfaces, they were hidden by predators and harder to spot. This camouflage allowed to live longer and reproduce more than the light moths.
On the darker surfaces, the lighter moths were very noticeable and predators would eat them. Another example of natural selection would be in a case such as Antarctica. Antarctica is a very unique climate much different than the one we live in. That is why is it very uninhabited. The condition are so harsh and extreme that only certain things are able to survive there.
Polar bears, seals, penguins, and several other species are able to survive and thrive in Antarctica because they equipped with special skins, furs, and adaptations that make life possible. If any animals such as deer, snakes, owls, or other animals commonly found in our region were placed in Antarctica, they would most likely not survive. The species would die because they were not adapt to live there and would not know how to take care of themselves. Natural selection is also very similarly to survival of the fittest which simply states that organisms more adapted their environment or most likely to survive. As a population of a species increases, there is a increase in the amount of resources. If their isn’t enough resources in one area, there is completion. The strongest and more adapted animals are able to win the resources and beat the weaker less adapted animals. Without adequate resources, some species in a certain area will starve and the population will drop. Natural selection can be seen in wildlife all over the world. An example of an animal is a Giraffe which is adapted to its environment because it has a long neck and can reach leaves and fruits located up high in trees. Other animals are unable to reach the food in the trees so the giraffes do not have competition for food and are able to survive in areas where their resources are found. Without natural selection, the populations of species would be outrageous. The world would be to full of animals and there would be to much competition. It also is a way to better the gene pool. When weak, inefficient animals die, the species’ genes become stronger and better. That means that when an animal reproduces, they off spring will be of higher quality and be more likely to survive in their new environment. Even though some animals seem like a nuisance or scary to some, each animal has a purpose. Each animal is unique or special in its own way and betters the earth at one point or another. Without animals life wouldn’t be quite the same. As humans, we should be more appreciative and respectable towards our environment and the creatures that inhabitant it.






Links:
dictionary
wikipedia
anthro
biology
globalchange

Megan Clark - Camouflage and Mimicry

My name is Megan Clark, and I have lived in Kansas for seven years. Before that I lived in North Carolina near Raleigh. My parents are divorced and my dad lives in Chicago.



I have two younger brothers and two cats. I like to draw, and I have a job. I'm not sure what I want to do when I get out of high school. Either something to do with the arts or animals.



Every animal has to be able to survive. Some use poison, or adaptations. There are animals that use camouflage and mimicry, and these are the interesting ones. Some animals will take on the major traits of another animal to prevent being eaten. The Monarch butterfly is poisonous to other animals when they eat it, and there is another butterfly named the Viceroy that looks very similar to it. No other animals will take the chance of eating something poisonous. Mimicry is defined by when one animal copies another’s appearance, actions, or sounds. Usually this is to avoid predators, and they usually make themselves appear like a predator to escape notice.



Camouflage is not supposed to make them look like predators, but to let them hide from the predators. It is a form of deceptive coloration to conceal them from everything they wish. There are a few types of camouflage which are background matching, color changing, disruptive coloration, and counter shading. Background matching would be when an animal adapts so its skin is the same color as a background.

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Color changing is what is sounds like; when an animal is able to change the color of its skin. A background matching animal would be a snake or frog. Disruptive coloration would be like a zebra, the stripes don't allow you to see where it's body ends. A color changing example is a chameleon, and counter shading would be when an animal has a darker top, and a lighter bottom, like a penguin. These camouflaging methods took millions of years to refine and are still in work.



There are two types of mimicry; Batesian mimicry and Mullerian mimicry. Batesian mimicry is when two animals look alike and one of them is poisonous. The other is when both animals are toxic, but they look alike for extra benefits. The first kind can be shown by the Drone Bee to the right. It has adapted to look like a honey bee. There is a moth named the Cinnabar Moth, and while it is in larval state it has black and yellow stripes. It tastes horrible, and they avoid eating Yellow Jackets because of it. This is a form of Mullerian mimicry.



Both of these traits were, and are necessary for survival. Without them none of the survival rates would be very steady; It would just be luck. Now it is which organism can overcome the other one's adaptations. The shark has not evolved for many years because it is so old. Nothing threatens it except humans so it has no big reason to change. Most animals are still adapting though, and it takes millions of years to form adaptations.



Links:
http://www.nhptv.org/NatureWorks/nwep2a.htm
http://xnet.rrc.mb.ca/davidb/introduction2.htm
http://ladywildlife.com/animal/howmimicryprotectsanimals.html
http://www.geocities.com/brisbane_insects/Mimicry.htm
http://oncampus.richmond.edu/academics/education/projects/webunits/adaptations/camou1.html

Arificial Selection