Writing in Biology

Canis latrans, Canis lupus, and Canis lupus familiaris are different species. According to the article, Yes, eastern coyotes are hybrids, but the ‘coywolf’ is not a thing, by Roland Kays says that Canis latrans are hybrid species composed with three different genetic swapping between three types of Canis, each type of them have a separate ratio of how much each gene it is composed of. The article writes that the three species are biologically possible to interbreed with one another but preferably not to mate with each other. I think this is the vital part which supports that these species are no longer the same because within a population, species will not have an urge to kill one another within the group. However, the fact that these three species will exhibit enmity is a strong evidence that they are separate.

I work in a research lab on campus. We work with anaerobic bacteria, meaning that they don’t require oxygen to make energy, in fact that bacteria that we use in my lab will die in the presence of oxygen. When we make media to put the bacteria in we must gas out the media. We typically do it by using a blend of nitrogen and CO2. To seal the bottle containing the media we place an air tight cap on called a bung. The bung must be place on the jar while the cannula (which is putting gas in the media) is still in the bottle. This task is incredibly hard to do considering the fact the bottle opening is barely big enough for the bung itself. In putting the bungs on I tore all the skin off the top of my middle finger. The wound is still healing almost one week later. It has a gross yellow scab which has grown over the top of it. The scab has begun to split and a slight hint of fresh blood has been coming out for the last couple days. I really need more calluses to form and I need them to form fast because everytime I create an environment for these bacteria to live in I will have to do this process.  

Overall differences in the panels of the figures were first noted. This included the shade of color used in each square of the panels in the two figures. In the original, the green is lighter in panel A. In figure 1, panel B, the color used was rose, but the replication, a color closer to maroon is used. The shade of purple used is lighter in panel C of the original, but the blue is a lighter shade in the replication in panel D of figure 2. The labeling of the figures are different as well. In the original multi-panel figure, the labels are placed in the furthest corner of the panels, but in the replication, the labels are placed in the corner of the images themselves. Furthermore, no captions that detail the species and their interactions are provided in the replication. Lastly, the quality of the images were immediately noticed as well, with the clearer images being in the original multi-panel figure.

One thing that I noticed was that the background and the sizes were different in both the original and the replicate. The first picture (replicate) shows that there is snow on the ground compared to the original and there are also more birds in the original picture than the replicate. The first picture from the original also shows that there are eight geese, but in the replicate there are only two and a tree trunk. On the second picture, the two differences were that, one picture was taken on land/grass (original), and the other one was taken in the water (replicate). There are only one female and a male duck from the original versus the replicate which consists of eight male and two female ducks.

 

The methods project required students to create a multi-panel scientific figure of an interspecific interaction. A methods section was then created by the student to describe in detail how to replicate the figure created. The purpose of the project was to be able to see if the methods that were written could lead to an accurate replication of the multi-panel figure created. There were three separate panels in the figure that consisted of lichen and a tree. The differences observed in this figure was of background, color, and labeling. These differences were a result from the differences in weather and positioning of the photo.

    Between the two figures there are only a couple of differences that stand out when taking a first glance. These differences consist of the labeling, the background, and the quality of both the images. The labeling in Figure 1, the original, consists of using capital letters while in Figure 2, the replica, the letters are not capitalized. The font that is used in both images cannot be correctly identified. In Figure 1 the letters are layered on top of a white square, this white square is not present in the replica. Another difference all the photos share is the color of the trunk. Figure 1 has the trunk of the tree appearing black in color while in Figure 2 the trunk appears to have a white dusting on it.

Many differences presented in these figures can be explained by the weather. The original figure that was created, was taken after a rainshower had fallen on UMass. The rain would account for the dark color on the trunk of the tree that appears in Figure 1 and not in Figure 2. The panels in Figure 2 were created after a snowfall, the snowfall is the reason why the ground is white and why there is a white dusting on the trunk of the trees.

The differences in the labeling would be due to the way the information was presented. There was no mention of capitalization in the methods, just that the labels used were a, b, and c. This would have led to some confusion in the replicators end and a creation of panels with a lowercase labeling. The reason for no white square behind the letters may have been due to more confusion from the replicators end.

I downloaded all the photos I had and placed them onto my desktop so I knew where they were. I downloaded inkscape and opened it and uploaded each image . The two photos that include just the trunk without the ucard I made the same height and width it was the third photo with the ucard that was different. The two trunk photos were stacked ontop of each other and were to the right of the photo that included the ucard. I made the photo with lichens of varying sizes and the trunk image a by using the square box tool and put a textbox within the left corner. I highlighted the box and duplicated it two times but put the letters b and c for the next two. I put the letter b for photo of the trunk with lichens that were very small in size. I put letter c for the image other trunk and the ucard. I placed the letters in the left corners of each box. I exported the Figure onto my desktop and set the width to 1300 pixel.

I found a maple red tree outside of  the Durfee Conservatory and Garden in a rectangularly shaped piece of land that contained multiple rocks and small paths, right in front of a space of grass. The tree did not have any leaves coming off the branches due to the cold weather it was bare on top. It had many lichens covering the trunk of the tree some large some small. These lichens were ruffled pieces of green on the tree. Once I saw these lichens on the tree I got close up the tree a foot away from it and took a photo, using my phone in portrait mode, of the trunk making sure that the trunk took up most of the photo only a fourth of the image showed the background. In this photo there were two very large lichens and three smaller ones as well as a sprinkle of lichens around the trunk. I took another photo closer up to the tree allowing one fourth of the left side of the image to just be the background. This image did not have as many large lichens or smaller ones it just showed a splattering of lichens on the trunk. These lichens appeared more white then green. The next photo I took included my ucard for size reference. Once again most of the image was taken up by the tree trunk which once again was a foot away from me. My ucard was flipped showing the black strip closest to the lichen. These lichen were the two large ones and three medium ones with the ucard being next to the large lichen that appeared the lowest in the image. The trunk looked black in the background. All the photos taken were in portrait mode and I emailed them to myself to get access to them on my computer.

The imaging software used to create the figures may also account for the difference in many factors between them. Figure 1 was created through Inkscape and Figure 2 may have been created through Microsoft Word. Image size differences may be explained by software as Word limits the margin sizes to one inch by default, whereas in Inkscape, the images are not bound to any range. This also explains the letter label sizing, as font size 70 in Inkscape appears differently than font size 70 in Word. Word also does not have the same centering functions of the letter labels as Inkscape, also accounting for this difference between the two figures. Discrepancies in arrow shape and size are also explained by this software difference. In Word, arrows appear blue with a large width by default. In Inkscape, one can edit the arrow color and width. The arrowheads are also different as Inkscape offers a variety to choose from of different ang while Word has the singular arrowhead of 90 degrees. The black line in Panel C and green backgrounds of images in Figure 2 may also be remnants from Word imaging that Inkscape does not possess.