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Based upon the temperature and precipitation patterns I predict that biome 1 is a temperate shrubland/woodland biome. Temperate shrubland/woodland areas are distinct in that they have an obvious drought season in the summer months. The precipitation drops from about 110-130mm in the non-summer months to around 20mm from June-August. This is very similar to the temperate shrubland/woodland biosphere that we would encounter in Spain. Also, the temperature pattern of this biosphere closely resembles that of a typical temperate shrubland/woodland area. Temperature stays relatively consistent but sees a slight increase in the summer. This increase in temperature occurs at the same time that we see a drought season. This relationship between precipitation and temperature during the summer is characterized as an asynchrony which is a key component to temperate shrubland/woodland biomes. The average annual temperatures and precipitation counts are similar to those of Gerona Spain. This unknown biome has an average annual temperature of 13 degrees Celsius and a total annual precipitation of 1,024mm. Compared to the data of Gerona Spain which sees an average annual temperature of 16.7 degrees Celsius and a total annual precipitation of 747mm. The last observation that sticks out in regards to temperature or precipitation is the significant spike in precipitation during the month of October. Gerona Spain has a very similar spike during the same month.

S. Cerevisiaeis a unicellular, eukaryotic fungus and has the ability to grow aerobically or anaerobically in media. Cells divide through mitosis, resulting in two haploid daughter cells. Reproduction occurs between opposite genders, denoted as MATα or MATa. These two haploid cell types produce different pheromones necessary for mating which then allows the yeast to grow in a certain direction. During reproduction, cells fuse together, resulting in a diploid offspring. The cell remains in its diploid state until nitrogen starvation promotes sporulation. During sporulation, the four gametes produced are bound by a single membrane in a structure called an ascus and remain bound in this state till further environmental conditions improve. 

The budding yeast of Saccharomyces cerevisiae, a model organism, was chosen to analyze the effect of complementation within the adenine biosynthesis pathway. Four haploid  strains were mated together and grown on MV plates. The resulting phenotypes of these crosses were then analyzed. Utilizing the phenomenon of genetic complementation helped determine whether the mutation causing an adenine deficiency was caused by the same gene in haploid yeast strains or by different genes. The HB1 strain was determined to be an α-strain with a genotype of ade- ,while strains HA0, HA1 and HA2 were determined to all be a-strains with HA0 being ADE+ and HA1 and HA2 being ade-.

An observation notes a fact or occurrence using any of the five senses, whereas an inference explains or interprets the observation. For example, today in lab I picked up a bobcat skull and, while looking at its dentition, observed that it had carnassial teeth. This is just an observation because it involves simply noticing a characteristic of an object. Based on this observation it can be inferred that bobcats are carnivores, as only carnivores have a carnassial complex (although not all carnivores do). This inference explains the observation: carnassial teeth are present in this specific skull because the skull belongs to a carnivore.

All steps taken originated from the Biology Computer Resource Center, Room 311 in Morrill Science Center III South. I decided to study the relationship between tree roots and lichens. On emerging from the BCRC, I took a right turn to the end of the hallway, where I took another right turn onto a short hallway. I went straight ahead and on reaching the stairwell at the end of that hallway, I went down the  stairs to the second floor of the Morrill Science Center III. Right there on the second floor landing are a pair of glass doors, leading outside. I pushed the glass doors apart and came out onto a narrow tarred road. Across from me, the first maple tree on the lawn between the road and the back of the University club building had the sections of the bark close to the roots covered in green lichens. From where I stood, I took a picture to capture the whole tree using my iPhone 6 Plus camera. To get a better picture of just the lichens, I went closer to the tree, squat and took a picture. And to have something for comparison, I took a picture of a section of the tree trunk not covered in lichens. I uploaded the images to Inkscape, an open and free-source vector graphic editor, and set the pictures into three panels. I depicted the picture with a better view of the lichens as a magnification of the tree roots.

The inter species interaction that I decided to use for my project was between a tree and the Ivy branches climbing the trees. I started my search for pictures of this interaction by walking along the West side of North Pleasant St between Puffton village and UMass Amherst campus. While there were several examples of this interaction along this route, I wanted to look for a example that had a thick layer of Ivy branches going up at least 10 ft in the tree and a tree that was more than a foot in diameter. The example I picked for this was a tree in front of Puffton Village, approximately 100 ft from the first intersect For the individual species I took a photo of the Ivy branches from approximately 1 foot away from their side to try and isolate them in a picture. For the tree I searched around for another tree in the nearby area that did not have any Ivy branches climbing its trunk and used that for the picture. For the interaction pictures I took two pictures both from around 5 ft away from the tree. The first angled downward showing the base of the tree as well as the Ivy branches coming out of the ground and climbing the base of the tree. The second was angled slightly upward, showing the Ivy branches climbing higher up the tree wrapping around the branches of the tree. After taking these 4 photos I proceeded to return home and upload them to my computer to prepare for construction of my figure.

Fish exhibit many different ways of breathing through their gills. One of these ways is called pumping ventilation. Through ventilation the organism remains still but actively moves the gills continuously in order to pass water through. Other fish will move around constantly to pass water through their gills but won’t actually move their gills. This is called Ram ventilation and is seen in sharks and tuna. Squid and octopus ventilate their gills by taking water into their mantle cavities. By ejecting water though siphons they provide their gills with oxygen and propel themselves for locomotion at the same time. Overall fish gills allow for high oxygenation levels. Water leaving the gills loses 80-90% of initial oxygen content in fish. Mammals remove only 25% of oxygen present in lung air and crabs enable only 7-23%. Gills have filaments lined with lamella that help with respiration. However, when taken out of water these lamella stick together and prohibit the organism from respiring.

It is often assumed that oxygen consumption or metabolic rate occurs independently of the amount of oxygen available. However, this is not always the case. Invertebrates will sometimes increase their oxygen consumption as a function of different oxygen amounts. For some animals oxygen consumption is positively and linearly related to oxygen levels when levels are low. However, oxygen consumption obtains a plateau once levels reach a certain amount. Speckled trout are able to acclimate to low oxygen levels when maintained in low oxygen rich water. This proves that fish are able to extract oxygen from water better than most other organisms. Anaerobic metabolism is oxygen consumption without oxygen. Some organisms like internal parasites and bivalves survive only by anaerobic metabolism. Anaerobic metabolism is often associated with burst locomotion.

TNF-related apoptotic-inducing ligand (TRAIL) is a naturally-occurring cytokine that assists in initiating the extrinsic apoptotic process. TRAIL is a useful aspect of cancer therapy due to its death receptor binding properties for DR4 and DR5. This must be taken into account when engineering targeted treatments so normal, healthy tissue is not targeted and subsequently destroyed. ONC201, a hydrophilic small molecule, regulates the expression of TRAIL and can be put inside a liposome and transported into pancreatic adenocarcinomas. In an effort to regulate the specificity of this therapy, receptors as well as antibodies can be incorporated into the surface of the liposome that bind to pancreatic adenocarcinoma-specific antigens, such as MUC-1 and CA 19-9. In this way, a more resistant, targeted treatment for this cancer can be developed.

ONC201 also demonstrates synergistic effects with other cancer therapeutics to induce apoptosis in various types of cancers. In a study of glioblastoma, ONC201 synergized with ABT263 (Navitoclax), a small molecule inhibitor of the Bcl-2 protein family and BH3-mimetic, to induce apoptosis. Reduction of tumors were observed in vivo without any adverse side effects or toxicity (Karpel-Massler et al. 2015). In another study involving pancreatic adenocarcinoma, ONC201 activated both extrinsic (TRAIL-caspase-8-dependent) and intrinsic (caspase-9-dependent) apoptosis pathways while synergizing with gemcitabine, a common chemotherapy for this cancer, to inhibit Panc-1 xenograft growth in mice (Zhang et al. 2016). This combination therapy also increased the mice’s survivability.