User:Eyerusalem Abebe

January 25, 2015 Biological Life at American University

Purpose:

The purpose of this experiment is to learn how natural selection allows for evolution of different species to exist. Another purpose of this experiment is to make careful observations about certain characteristics of a niche. A niche is the description of where organisms interact with the environment, and this area is described by both living and nonliving factors of the environment.

Materials and Methods:

Part 1: The Volvocine Line Chlamydomonas (a motile living culture) is obtained. A wet mount slide is prepared, this means pipetting a single drop onto a slide and covering it with a coverslip, it is then observed under a microscope. If the particles are moving too fast protoslo, is added at the side of the coverslip. After the microscope is adjusted the characteristics such as number of cells, colony size (in μm), specialization of cells, mechanisms of motility, whether or not the sample is isogamous or oogamous, and a picture of the specimen are recorded. These steps are then repeated for the live cultures of gonium, and volvox.

Part 2: Observing a Niche at AU With an assigned group observe the 20 by 20 meter dimensions of the community garden at American University (take note of the number of the transact). Use the number of the transact to label all of the samples collected from this part of the lab. Use a 50 mL conical tubes in order take a sample of the garden including soil and any ground vegetation present. Then once back in lab a Hay Infusion Culture is made. The culture is made by taking 10-12 grams of the collected soil vegetation sample in a plastic jar, with 500 mLs of deerpark water. 0.1 grams of dried milk, is then added in the jar and carefully mixed for about 10 seconds. The top of the jar is then removed, the jar and top is labeled with the group name and number, then kept in the lab for one week undisturbed in order for the bacteria present to grow.

Data and Observations:

Data Table 1: Evolutionary Specialization of Members of the Volvocine Line

Figure 1: Topographic aerial map of Community Garden

The assigned transect contained plants grown by the community garden members, including cucumbers, lettuce, brussel sprouts, and spinach, these were biotic (live) components. Pine leaves and dead leaves (which weren’t grown on purpose) were the other biotic components present within the dimensions. The abiotic (nonliving) factors that were present in the garden were the irrigation system, a scarecrow, snow, a box (made of wood), and soil. These biotic and abiotic factors were found within the boxes constructed for the plants to grow in.

Conclusions:

In this lab the colony size specialization, motility mechanism, and reproduction type was identified. The Chlamydomonas and Gonium were both found to be isogamous, and 1μm in size. The Volvox was found to by oogamous and 3-4μm in size. Gonium and Volvox both have reproductive specializations. In order to do this part of the experiment better next time, I would suggest using protoslo on most of the wet mounts, because the view of the specimens was too fast for some slides. The observation of a niche lab was a collection of certain biotic and abiotic factors of the transect, it allowed us to understand what to take note of when observing an environment. If this part of the experiment were to be redone I would suggest taking a picture of the 20 by 20 transect because it was difficult to understand the sketch from the site because it did not have enough details drawn.

EA

January 19, 2015

I would like to practice reading and writing Amharic so I can think, read, write and speak in both English and Amharic.

EA

Contact Info

Eyerusalem Abebe (an artistic interpretation)

• Eyerusalem Abebe
• American University
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I work in the Your Lab at XYZ University. I learned about OpenWetWare from From a professor, and I've joined because I would like to join OWW because it is necessary for my biology 210, lab course..

Education

• Year, PhD, Institute
• Year, MS, Institute
• Year, BS, Institute

Research interests

1. Interest 1
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Publications

1. Goldbeter A and Koshland DE Jr. An amplified sensitivity arising from covalent modification in biological systems. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1981 Nov;78(11):6840-4. DOI:10.1073/pnas.78.11.6840 |
2. JACOB F and MONOD J. Genetic regulatory mechanisms in the synthesis of proteins. J Mol Biol. 1961 Jun;3:318-56. DOI:10.1016/s0022-2836(61)80072-7 |

   leave a comment about a paper here

3. ISBN:0879697164

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