Avocado Leaf Plasticity Essay

Please record the address of the property where the samples were collected, or—even better—provide GPS coordinates). You will bring these leaves to the college and will identify the trees they came from using accepted scientific methodology. I will give you guidance in how to identify the tree species. (Note that this may involve meeting outside of class time). You will then write a paper, using the same format as your regular lab report, on the identity of the trees, whether they are native to our area or not, and discuss why they might be growing where you found them. Your paper will be reviewed and you will have the option to either accept the grade given, or correcting any problems found. If problems are corrected, your grade will be raised to the maximum and your paper submitted for possible publication online at www.saturnjournal.org. This will be worth 10 bonus points. 3. Extra exam credit. There will be four bonus points available on each of the two lab practicals, and five bonus points on the final lecture exam, for a total of thirteen bonus points. Total bonus points available = 30. When added to your lowest qualifying exam grade, this equates to a maximum of six (6) points added to your final course average. EXAM POLICY: A. Repeating exams. Please note that each exam may be taken once only. Exams may not be repeated because you are not happy

Fitness is determined by the ability of an organism to survive, grow, and reproduce in a particular habitat. You

Plants are found everywhere on earth, up high on the ridge and down low in caves and caverns. The types of plants that live in these places depends on many factors. These factors are separated into two different categories, the biotic factors and the abiotic factors. Some of the biotic factors include, predation, competition, and habitat destruction. Plants with limited competition and large amounts of resources will be in a higher abundance than plants with limited resources and higher competition rates will be confined to areas and either out competed or will be the dominant species. Certain plants adapt to these factors and thrive and others don’t do as well. Some of the abiotic factors include, sunlight, water, temperature, and wind. These

Photoperiodism is the effect of the relative lengths of light and dark periods on plant growth. This occurs when photoreceptor proteins e.g phytochromes are produced by plants in response to light intensity or the absence of light. This in effect affects the height of plants. [5]

In my research paper, I will attempt to determine how the perception of light in phytochromes plays a role in the development of plants. Specifically, I will look at how phytochromes play a role in the growth and development of Arabidopsis thaliana. The paper will also look at how light perception plays a role in phototropism and the immune systems of a plant. Finally, my paper will explore how changing light conditions impact perception in phytochromes.

The third tank is our phenotypic plasticity group. One thousand Periwinkles were added into this tank. The Periwinkles used for this tank had the same shell thickness and the total number of individuals as our control group. We added one Carcinus into this tank, but unlike the second tank, the claws were bound together using rubber bands. The Periwinkles were left to reproduce along with the Carcinus for five generations. We recorded the shell thickness of the fifth generation and number of Periwinkles. We repeated this experiment seven times until eight trials were

Our results show that the dry weight and specific leaf weight are different for each sub species supporting the hypothesis that the subs species each adapted in their own way. Our results also showed that the surface area between the subspecies were very close in values which could reject our null hypothesis. You can tell by looking at the leaves that they each have their own shape which could be a sign of different adaptations. We could not test in the lab thought special adaptations such as how well the leaves are at preventing evapotranspiration. Our results on what we did test are not highly reliable.

Diversity increases in similar habitats across the globe by the process of convergent evolution (Withgott & Brennan, 2011). This occurs when similar environmental conditions existing in different regions of the globe cause organisms to develop very similar characteristics. Examples include the many

Organisms do not spontaneously evolve to these globally predicted changes rather they respond to their regional or local environment (Hoffman and Sgró 2011). The idea of behavioural plasticity, which is the evolutionary way to respond to change through behaviours, is the approach organisms use to adapt rapidly to change. A component of this behavioural plasticity is behavioural flexibility, which is the ability of phenotypes to show reversible switching. In this review I will first discuss unpredictability of climates and climatic events in the tropics. I will then explore how behavioural plasticity plays a major role in organisms coping with weather extremes. I will further demonstrate how climate change could alter the way we perceive the once stable tropics, with regards to human involvement in the changing landscape of the tropics. I suggest that behavioural plasticity

At solar noon, during the equinox, at the equator the intensity of solar radiation is 100% since the sun is directly overhead. Consequently, a forest with leaves that remain parallel to the forest floor has light quantity and quality attenuating down the canopy to the forest floor. Moreover, the attenuation will be greater than a forest with leaves at 60° even though they have the same LAI.

In this study, Plant A, which received twenty-four hours of artificial light every day, will reach the maximum height amongst all plants. Due to the maximum access of light, Plant A will therefore have the most access to energy, which is a vital source of food to the bean plant. With more energy available to the plant, photosynthesis can provide an abundance of food availability which will cause the plant to thrive more successfully.

Phenotypic plasticity is when a genotype of an organism displays different phenotypes due to the conditions of the environment. It is important to understand why different organisms respond differently to changes in the environment and the ways they adapt to these changes. This paper focuses on whether these adaptations are due to either phenotypic plasticity or local adaptation. Since nothing is ever perfect, the paper also concentrates on the constraints of phenotypic plasticity which are divided into two; costs and limits. Costs of phenotypic plasticity would be that which would lead to reduced fitness. In contrast, the limit of plasticity is where the traits produced by plasticity is not at an optimal level. The effects of plasticity in a population is also discussed. Since phenotypic plasticity can be measured at different levels, this paper would focus mainly on the individual phenotypic plasticity.

Our lab investigated the morphological characteristics of leaves found in the sun and shade on various species of maple and oak trees around campus. Our null hypothesis was Acer and Quercus acclimate similarly with regards to SLW (specific leaf weight), size, and sinuosity. Our hypothesis was Quercus acclimation is greater than Acer SLW, size, and sinuosity. We tested these hypotheses by picking small sections of a branches from both maple and oak trees. A group was assigned either a maple or an oak tree, and needed a total of three different trees per group. Once three different trees were chosen, groups needed three shade leaves and three sun leaves of off each different tree. In total, each group should then end up with 18 leaves for testing. After collecting the leaves, we ran them through the LiCor 3100 leaf area meter to identify the area of each leaf. Major results found by the classes’ mutual data was each one of our p-values were greater than .05. This means that we failed to reject the null hypothesis. Thus, the lab results do not support our hypothesis that Quercus acclimation is greater than Acer SLW, size, and sinuosity.

In total twenty five, including sixteen qualitative and nine qualitative, morphological traits were investigated. These characters were: the stem height and its diameter, number of veins in basal leaf, the basal and floral leaf shape, the width and length of the basal and floral leaves, the length/width ratio of the basal and floral leaves, the shape of leaf apex and margin, the size of calyx width, length and its length/width ratio, the size of sepal width and its color, the size of corolla length and the style length. Two replications were made for each character per each flowering stem. The mean value and standard deviation of quantitative characters were presented in table 2.

We know that light is an important part of both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. In a forest system both the canopy and the understory absorb light. The type of forest and leaf cover present determines the amount of light that reaches the understory. This can be measured using the LAI (Leaf Area Index), which is the amount of leaves per unit ground area. Light quantity in forests is affected by several factors such as tree species, age, and density.