You are here

Home » Blogs

afeltrin's blog

Species Richness Predicted

Submitted by afeltrin on Mon, 02/11/2019 - 17:27

As a slope of 1 is nearly never observed in the real world, this graph depicting a slope of greater than 1 would never be seen in nature. It is impossible for this slope to occur in nature, because any given point of local species richness cannot be greater than the equivalent point of regional species richness due to the local species having to be contained in the regional species. The spatial scale of the region always has to be larger than its local counterpart. Looking at the graph, a local species richness of 11 would never be observed in nature when plotted against a regional species richness of 7. It is hypothetically impossible to ever witness.

Finding an Interspecific Interaction - Methods PP3

Submitted by afeltrin on Thu, 02/07/2019 - 13:10
    I found a quarter in my apartment to act as an object I could use to show the organisms to scale. I made sure I had my phone with me as well. I went to the Durfee Conservatory on campus and strolled through each greenhouse, observing the present plants. Once I entered Greenhouse 4, I saw the Mimosa pudica. Having previously learned about M. pudica, I knew that this species has strong sensors when touched. I held up the quarter next to the plant and took a photo. I took a photo of my finger next to the quarter. After taking the necessary photos, I stroked along the stem of the leaf on the M. pudica and photographed the reaction that occurred. After taking the photos, I went back to my apartment and downloaded the photos onto my computer.

 

Finding an Interspecific Interaction - Methods

Submitted by afeltrin on Thu, 02/07/2019 - 11:40
I found a quarter in my apartment to act as an object I could use to show the organisms to scale. I made sure I had my phone with me as well, and I left. I went to the Durfee Conservatory on campus and strolled through each greenhouse, observing the present plants. Once I entered Greenhouse 4, I saw the Mimosa pudica. Having previously learned about M. pudica, I knew that this species has strong sensors for touch. I held up the quarter next to the plant and took a photo. I took a photo of my hand next to the quarter. After taking the necessary photos, I stroked along the stem of the leaf on the M. pudica and photographed the reaction that occurred. After taking the photos, I went back to my apartment and downloaded the photos onto my computer.

 

Update on Larva

Submitted by afeltrin on Thu, 02/07/2019 - 11:13

The organism has ceased movement, after a sluggish week. The body is now darker in pigment, close to a dark brown or black color, along with portions of tan segments. It appears to have shed a portion of its anterior body, as there is presently the shell moving around in the container. The larva has begun to pupate, with a new shell covering over half of the body. There is a long, dark line extending down the length of its body, presumably it is part of pupate shell forming. Where the segments of the body are differentiated, there is presently darker pigment. There is currently no visibility of the true legs. The pupating process is predicted to complete by this time next week.

Methods of Determining Independent Evolution in Setophaga Warblers

Submitted by afeltrin on Thu, 02/07/2019 - 07:45

Using a list of Setophaga warblers given, we observed their plumage characteristics via preserved warblers provided and reputable web sources. After observing their plumage characteristics, we chose twelve characteristics to compare among the list of warblers provided: presence of wing bars, nape color, tail color, breast color, crown color, belly color, toe color, supercilium color, orbital feather color, bill color, flank color, and tarsus color. For each warbler, we sorted through our twelve characteristics and distinguished by color or presence of these characteristics. We, then, chose four characteristics (presence of wing bars, nape color, orbital feather color, and belly color) and plotted them on the genus Setophaga cladogram.

Cultural Narratives in the United States

Submitted by afeltrin on Wed, 02/06/2019 - 23:00

In “Strange Country This,” the two-spirit people complicate common cultural narratives in the United States. Berdaches really challenge our common beliefs about biology in the United States. It’s odd for us, as a society, to see another society that so openly allows these two-spirit people to have both sexes simultaneously, though they don’t biologically. Our society has lasted for centuries with only acknowledging two biological sexes—males and females. We do recognize intersex people, but I feel like we don’t hear or learn much about them. It’s almost as if their biology is considered taboo. Especially regarding the video involved in lecture, doctors will so easily conduct these surgeries to make intersex people considered “normal” even if surgery is unnecessary. I don’t think our society would be so open to accepting people that display one sex, but through a supposed supernatural intervention, now can switch between the sexes. Attraction regarding two-spirit people is quite fascinating. There isn’t much known definitively about their sexuality; we do know that they would have relations with men and women, and it was accepted by the community. Our society has just recently become more accepting of same-sex relations, with the passing of same-sex marriage laws, and bisexuality. That doesn’t mean there still aren’t people that aren’t accepting of this, when you look at the sexually-motivated hate crimes that continue to occur.

Description of a Biome

Submitted by afeltrin on Wed, 02/06/2019 - 21:43

One would find this biome near the equator, between 10° North and South. This graph is quite similar in pattern to the tropical rainforests, yet it lacks the extreme amount of precipitation that area receives and the slightly warmer temperatures. Likewise to the tropical rainforest, this biome experiences a consistent pattern of precipitation and temperatures. This biome still receives quite warm temperatures, albeit the lack of needed rainfall. There would be a decent amount of plant species occupying the area, from deciduous trees to grasses and shrubs to broad-leaved evergreens. There may be competition for light, with these tall trees occupying the biome. There would also be competition for water, due to the smaller amount of yearly precipitation. Perhaps the grasses here would also grow more roots to uptake more water. The soil would most likely be poor in nutrients due to the meager amount of rainfall and poor soil depth. With the temperature and precipitation values, I would not expect this area to experience subfreezing temperatures or droughts.

Beluga Whale Call Methods

Submitted by afeltrin on Wed, 02/06/2019 - 15:49

We found two databases of marine mammal sounds, those being the Watkins Marine Mammal Sound Database through the New Bedford Whaling Museum, and the Macaulay Library through the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. We gathered approximately five sound files of Delphinapterus leucas (beluga whales) from each of the three locations we chose to analyze: St. Lawrence River and Saguenay River in Canada, and Harrison Bay in the north of Alaska. We downloaded each sound file and observed them in Raven Pro, paying attention to the peak frequency, note duration, and note rate. With the data gathered from Raven Pro, we then input the data into R Studio and observed the trends among the data, creating whisker box plots.

Group 11 - Alexis and Cynthia

Submitted by afeltrin on Fri, 02/01/2019 - 14:42

Looking at the website, Friends of Science, upon first glance, it looks authentic. It seems credible as it ends in .org, and when viewing the articles, they cite credible sources for the most part. When actually reading an article, there are grammatical errors throughout and a poor setup with no adequate flow of paragraphs. Their belief is that the sun, alone, indirectly and directly causes climate change, and that people cause no impact on climate. Their goal is poorly structured with punctuation errors; it’s essentially one run-on sentence. They believe that the polar ice caps are not melting, even though scientists have accurately predicted that polar bears will be extinct if the rapid increase in temperature as the years go on is not stopped. They do have a section for Scientific References, yet their whole site is extremely biased.

Pages

Subscribe to RSS - afeltrin's blog