Writing in Biology

After 14 days, 100 surviving plants were transplanted to pots and treatment fertilizer was added (Osmocote Classic 14-14-14, Scotts-Sierra Horticultural Products Company, Marysville, OH). Treatment of application of jasmonic acid and fertilizer amount was randomized, 50 plants were assigned treatment and 50 were not. The same soil used to plant the seeds was used. Half of the plants in each treatment group received one teaspoon of fertilizer, the other half received two. After application of fertilizer, plants were put onto greenhouse bench and watered. Plants were watered daily for 14 days. After 14 days, plant height was recorded on surviving plants. Non-surviving plants were discarded. Treatment of mechanical damage was done by cutting off half of some leaves and 1 spray jasmonic acid in acetone solution was applied. Control received 1 spray of acetone. Plants were placed on heat mat in greenhouse. 

Experiment begun January 19, 2019. Tomato species Lycopersicon lycopersicum, a dwarf variety to mature in 50 days, was used. Seeds used were “Tumbler Hybrid Tomato” (Lake Valley Seed, Boulder, CO). Seeds were sown into two 128-plug flats with a moist seed starter soil (Organic Starter Premium Potting Mix, Epsoma, Millville, NJ). Flats were placed on a greenhouse bench with natural light. Germination was induced by placing onto a heat mat. After 17 days in these conditions, 100 ppm N of 20-10-20 were added at every watering. The N was increased to 200 ppm after 7 days of growth.

I hypothesize that spraying jasmonic acid onto mechanically damaged plants will reduce herbivore desirability for the plants. Doing so will cause necrosis to some of the leaves of the plants which receive a normal amount of fertilizer but will not cause necrosis to the doubly fertilized plants, and the plants receiving double fertilizer will show an increased amount of defenses, such as trichomes. 

The reaction of plants to stress from their environment, be it the plant’s consumers or the environment, involves a series of pathways which induce defenses (Tian, Peiffer, et al.). These pathways involve several hormones which trigger defense responses in plants. Jasmonic acid is a hormone that plants release to control responses from stress, such as damage from weather or herbivores. It has been observed that applying jasmonic acid onto a tomato plant can be used as a pesticide by inducing defenses plants use naturally to deter herbivores from consuming them (Tian, Tooker, et al.; Tian, Peiffer, et al.). Administering jasmonic acid onto a tomato plant can cause plants to grow more trichomes (hair-like structures that grow on the leaf of the plant that make traversing them more difficult for herbivores) (Tian, Tooker, et al.). Tomato plants treated with jasmonic acid have been shown to be less preferable to consume by herbivores as a result of secondary compounds produced, and the herbivores that consume them do not grow as large (Tian, Peiffer, et al.). 

However, artificially inducing plant defenses has been shown to affect the growth of plants, the reproductive process, and may negatively affect the fruit and leaves of the plant (Redman et al.; Koussevitzky et al.)Applying jasmonic acid to tomato plants can result in larger but fewer fruits, the amount of seeds produced, and the success of germination (Redman et al.). Treating plants with jasmonic acid has been shown to enhance the amount of polyphenol oxidase in the chloroplasts of the plants (Koussevitzky et al.) Excess polyphenol oxidase could cause the fruits and/or leaves to brown faster and the fruits to consist of more pigments, which is a sign of an increased rate of cell death (Araji et al.).

The reaction of plants to stress from their environment, be it the plant’s consumers or the environment, involves a series of pathways which induce defenses (Tian, Peiffer, et al.). These pathways involve several hormones which trigger the defense responses in plants. Jasmonic acid is a hormone that plants release to control the responses from stress, such as damage from weather or herbivores. It has been observed in many studies that applying jasmonic acid onto a tomato plant can be used as a pesticide by inducing defenses plant naturally use to deter herbivores from consuming them (Tian, Tooker, et al.; Tian, Peiffer, et al.). Administering jasmonic acid onto a tomato plant can cause plants to grow more trichomes, which are hair-like structures that grow on the leaf of the plant that make traversing them more difficult for herbivores (Tian, Tooker, et al.). Tomato plants treated with jasmonic acid have been shown to be less preferable to consume by herbivores as a result of secondary compounds produced, and the herbivores that consume them do not grow as large (Tian, Peiffer, et al.). 

Again I am studying for a biochemistry test and as anyone reading this would notice the exam is this week and I am using my 30 minutes of daily writing to help me dive in to concepts with words rather than images or equations. There is many ways to express the activity of enzymes and one way is with the rules that Michaelis and Menten have laid out. They make three assumptions. The first being that there is no k-2. This means that any amount of enzyme product complex is negligible so it isn’t counted, it also means that free enzymes and products will never complete a reverse reaction to return to the enzyme substrate complex. The second assumption is that the concentration of the enzyme substrate complex remains constant when measuring the initial velocity. The third assumption is that Vmax can always be reached, this means that you can always react the most available enzymes with the most available substrates. Putting all of these assumptions together you can fully understand the equation. E+S<->ES<->E+P. E is enzyme, S is substrate, P is product, ES is enzyme substrate complex. You can go back and forth between the free enzymes and free substrates state and the enzyme substrate complex. The rate at which the enzyme substrate complex is formed remains constant. Once you pass the enzyme substrate complex to the free enzyme and product you can no longer return to the enzyme substrate complex. When graphed you can always relate the substrate concentration to the velocity. This is where you can derive the relation Km=[substrate] at ½ Vmax.

I elected to take Resource Economics 212 during the fall semester of my sophomore year for my statistics requirement. The thing I remember most about the course was how to do certain functions on Microsoft Excel or in Google Sheets. I remember some of the functions used on Excel, for example I remember how find the mean, mode, average, and standard deviation of a given data set. I also remember some tricks when turning data into graphs or tables. We did a lot of work with probabilities and chance as well, but I do not remember much of the formulas or steps to solve these types of problems. Lastly, we did a group project working with a given set of data is which we had to interpret and come up with a proposition. Overall, I do not recall a lot of specifics from the course though.

Equidae is a family in the order Perissodactyla in class Mammalia. It includes horses, donkeys, zebras, burros, and asses. It also included quagga but they went extinct in 1883. They are in the order Perissodactyla becuase they have an odd number of toes with the center of weight traveling through the 3rd or middle digit. In this case, those in family Equidae have a single functional toe. The single toe, or hoof, makes Equidae the most cursorial, or most adapted for running, Perissodactyla in the modern age. Equidae are grazers meaning their diet consists of grass and they are hindgut fermentors in order to digest grass. They are also polygnous. A single male stallion controls the access to multiple females. The stallions can get agressive and if another approaches, they can bite and kick with their powerful legs to ward them off. 

Evolutionaryly, horses developed in present day North America, Europe, and Asia. They were small, dog sized animals that lived in forests and had more toes. Over time, as the global climate was changing and North America became more grassland, the horses grew in size and reduced the number of digits to adapt. Eventually, modern horses became extinct in the Americas and were not reintroduced until the Europeans travelled there. 

Equidae is a family in the order Perussidactyla in class mammalia. They include horses, donkeys, zebras, burros, and asses. It also included quagga but they went extinct in 1883. They are in the order perussidactyla becuase they have an odd number of toes the center of weight traveling through the 3rd or middle digit. In this case, those in family Equidae have a single functional toe. The single toe or hoof makes Equidae the most cursorial, or most adapted for running, perussidactyla in the modern age. Equidae are grazers meaning their diet consists of grass and they are hindgut fermentors in order to digest grass. They are also polygnous. A single male stallion controls the access to multiple females. The stallions can get agressive and if another approaches, they can bite and kick with their powerful legs to ward them off. 

Evolutionaryly, horses developed in present day North America, Europe, and Asia. They were small, dog sized animals that lived in forests and had more toes. Over time, as the global climate was changing and north america became more grassland, the horses grew in size and reduced the number of digits to adapt. Eventually, modern horses became extinct in the Americas and were not reintroduced until the Europeans travelled there. 

I took Statistics 240 in the Fall 2017 semester.  I remember that a normal distribution, or bell curve, is a representation of data around a mean.  68% of data falls within one standard deviation of the mean, 95% within two, and 99% within three.  A chi squared test is used to see if two variables are related. The null is that they are not, but if the p value comes to less than 0.05, then we reject the null and say that the variables are related.  Sampling distributions are used to draw conclusions about an entire population based on data taken from a small subset. When this is done, confidence intervals can be made - generally 95% or 99%. For example, a 95% confidence interval would mean that researchers are 95% confident that the true mean of the entire population lies within the range they set.  When probabilities of events occuring are known and we want to know the probability of something happening based on that repeated event, we use p, the population proportion. We can construct a confidence interval for a population proportion using “p hat.” Z scores are used to test how likely an event is to occur. If a z-score gives us a standard deviation that is not near zero (above 3, for example) we can say that we do not believe the event occurred because the probability is so low.