Writing in Biology - Section 1

Yes, the larger question presented in the paper is “the effects of water availability on plant communities.” This question is clearly defined in the beginning of the introduction. The background information is thoroughly elaborated on. This paper goes into detail about green house gas affects on precipitation patterns, giving the reader a full background on how green house gasses work and their potential impact. There is one part of the paper that mentions storm tracks without a brief background, leaving the reader a bit confused. The references are useful, especially when they tie in information pertaining to New England climate. The references are cited properly. Yes, the larger question of “the effects of water availability on plant communities” is tied to the hypothesized statement that different slopes will have different amounts of runoff and evaporation leading to different types of vegetation occupying that space. The hypothesis is linked to the prediction that the three sites on the Holyoke Range will have different amounts of water availability.

In reading EKG, or ECG, output lines, there are many different types of harmful systoles, meaing beating patterns of the heart. The four major deadly heart behaves that are identifiable on ECGs are atrial fibrilation, ventrical fibrilation, ventrical tachycardia, and Torsades de Pointes. Notably, only one the four beat patterns involves just atrial issues, atrial fibrilation. This heart beat consists of a quivering twitching atria that is not effectively pumping any blood into the ventricles. This can lead to death by lack of profusion from the heart. The ventricles simply are not pumping blood, even though the ventricles are pumping correctly, because there is very little blood getting into the ventricles. Ventricle fibrilation is the same type of behavior by the atria but not in the stronger more important ventricle muscles. The quivering here prevents all profusion of blood to the body and lungs because there is no effective pump by the ventricles and the blood pools in the heart. Ventrical tachycardia is when the ventricles are acting without signal from the atria to consistently beat without any rest period between beats. This prevents blood from exiting the heart because there is no time for the ventricles to fill with the succient amount of blood required to sustain life. Finally, Torsades de Pointes is a heart beating pattern that in english means "Twisted Spikes/Peaks". It looks much like a sound wave on soundcloud. This pattern shows the ventricle pumping continuously, but at varying and inconsistent strength. It is non stop beating with either strong or weak pumps, sometimes not beating at all. This is too inconsistent to sustain life by the continuous blood supply needed. 

In nature, when local and regional species diversity value equals 1 (slope = 1), then all the species within a region will be found in all communities in that region thus the slope will be linear, but because this is species richness and not diversity, it is impossible to have more species in a local community than the region as a whole . However, this could also happen in nature only if the axis’ were different. For example, instead of intervals of two, it would have to be 5, 10 , 50, 100, 200 on the x axis, to show the large increase in regional species richness. It would not be a linear scale, and this one is. It is not actually greater than 1. 

DefB103 shows that we have do not have 3 G’s in a row, (shown in Figure 3). Since the data gets messy after the 2 G’s, we are favorable for the deletion and can conclude that our dog does not have wild-type DefB103 gene. However, at the third G, there is a heterozygous peak (A/G): there is one copy of the DNA strand that has the 5 G’s in a row, while another copy of DNA does not have 5 G’s in a row. Having a copy of both 5 Gs and 2 Gs means that we can conclude that we are heterozygous for β-Defensin, so our dog’s genotype is K^B/k^Y at the K locus.

EKGs, also called ECGs by American spelling, are vital tests that reveal detailed information about the cardiac functions and electrical impulses in the heart. An ECG can be obtained through a four lead measuring of the body. A  twelve lead gage is most commonly used for advanced heart health determination, but will show nearly the same information as a four lead gage when the V2 path is used, that is the leads from the right shoulder to the lower right side are used in the bipolar lead reading. This measures the electrical activity of the heart and displays it as a precise series of waves in a line. This represents the electrocardiogram. The reading consists of a small P wave, a QRS complex wave, and T and U waves. The P wave signifies the contraction of the atrium, that is the electrical impulse running down the arita that cause muscle contraction. The QRS complex is the hyperpolarization of the ventricle followed by the contraction repolerization, and relaxation. Next follows the T wave and the U waves, which are highly variable segments between each patient and hold much less information. The T and U waves can vary greatly and have little to no effect on the health of the heart and its functions as these are simply resetting polarizations in preparation for the next heart beat. 

Ibuprofen inhibits prostaglandin formation. Prostaglandin dilates afferent arterioles. Since ibuprofen inhibits prostaglandin, our afferent arteriole can no longer be as dilated as it was before, which will decrease blood flow in the kidney and therefore filtration. When we exercise, we constrict vessels in the kidney and slow down blood flow in order to focus more on the muscles we are using when we exercise. We would definitely not want to take ibuprofen while exercising, as this would stress our kidney out even more and would cause more constriction and reduced blood flow to the arterioles supplying blood for the kidney.

Hyperventilation happens when PCO2 drops. When PCO2 drops, we become more basic, and pH increases. This means we are alkaline, and that translates to us having respiratory alkalosis. An example of this happening is when we are at high altitude. When we are hypoventilating, we’re breathing too little. We have increased PCO2, and this lowers pH, and makes us more acidic. Therefore, we have respiratory acidosis.

Other pH imbalances include metabolic acidosis, where the production of blood acids exceeds loss. Examples of this include ketoacidosis, diarrhea and intense exercise. On the other hand, metabolic alkalosis is when the production of blood acids is less than loss. An example of this is throwing up.

Hypothesis: Light will disrupt courting activity in male crickets, causing them to exhibit fewer mating/competitive behaviors when in the presence of a female cricket and another male cricket.

We chose this hypothesis because when we were working on crickets for lab a few weeks ago, we noticed that the crickets were looking to hide under the paper provided inside of their tanks, and this sparked the question of whether their activity slows down based on how much light is available to them. We know that Light pollution is a big problem, so we wondered how it will affect mating behavior in an animal that we know normally mates at night, and found that their activity is decreased in a study done on crickets being exposed to longterm light conditions.

In another study, on the circadian rhythms of crickets, it was found that they are entrained to be active during the “dark period” which further supports our hypothesis that light disrupts their activity. Our goal is to observe whether males are more active, i.e. displaying behaviors of competition towards another male, or courting a female, in light or dark conditions, and determine of exposure light is the cause of this- which is why we are also including a reference describing types of courtship behaviors in male, in particular, chirping.

We are also referencing our lab we did in class a few weeks ago, where we observed aggressive territorial behaviors in winner versus losers in crickets, as a source of what kinds of behaviors males display when they are competing with another male. Finally, our last reference helps us to better understand when crickets begin mating calls. The reference explains the variances in times and intensity for male mating calls during the evening, which helps our hypothesis further by demonstrating that the light presented in one of the tanks during our experiment will disrupt the courting activity and deter males from calling for females.

After sexing all thirty crickets and separating them accordingly, observers waited 5 minutes to allow the crickets to settle into their new containers. After the 5 minutes ended, two females were chosen at random to be placed into the light and dark simulation arenas. The female crickets were alone in the arenas for 3 minutes before 4 males were chosen at random (two for each arena) and placed simultaneously into the respective arenas. Once all 3 crickets were in an observation tank together, they were watched for a total of 5 minutes.

One observer attended to the trio in the light arena, while the other examined the trio in the dark arena. During this time, observers kept a tally of any mating behaviors or aggressive/competitive behaviors. This includes pursuing the female to mate, or engaging in male-male competition. Examples of female persuasion behavior included actively following the female, mounting, or chirping. Examples of male-male competitive behaviors included moving pinchers, actively moving towards the other male in the arena, and also chirping. If either male began to pursue the female within the allotted time period, the time of first movement towards the female was also written down. After the observation time was completed, all three crickets from each tank were placed back into their original holding container to eliminate re-using a cricket in the same arena and to assure trials were completed independently of one another. This procedure was repeated 5 times for each type of environment.

The following equipment was used to ensure proper handling of subjects and simulate a light or dark environment. Two containers were used as vessels to house both sexes of crickets, respectively. Holes were poked into the lids of the containers to ensure proper ventilation for the insects. Two larger containers were used as arenas, where the majority of the experiment was conducted. In the first large container, used as the light environment simulation, a lamp of 5 watts was placed directly overhead. This angle of the lamp was to help mimic the brightness of the sun at noon.

The second large container, simulating the dark environment, had only minimal, ambient light from the window. The low, natural light was necessary for the observers to assess latin name cricket. Two vials were used to safely transfer the crickets from their housing containers to the light and dark arenas, in which they could be properly observed.