Title: Hitting the redo button on evolution
Source: Saey, Tina Hesman. "Hitting the redo button on evolution." Science News for Kids 11 Feb. 2009. Student Resources in Context. Web. 25 Feb. 2012.
Summary: Over time, humans, plants, animals, bacteria and much more have made adaptations so they can live, survive, and reproduce in the environment that they are in. Charles Darwin came up with the theory of evolution with the help of the process known as Natural Selection or as some would say 'Survival of the Fittest'. A fish called the stickleback has proved this process because sticklebacks with spines can survive in an ocean. This is because their spines make it harder to be eaten by big fish, while the pond sticklebacks have no worry of big fish but can be grabbed by dragonflies and gobbled down. Over time, the pond sticklebacks made the adaption of no spines so they could survive in their environment. Also, Richard Lenski is doing an experiment on bacteria to see if feeding E. coli the same food but freezing some, will come out with the same results when the frozen E. coli gets unfrozen.
This picture is of a dragonfly literally holding a stickleback by its spine to eat it.
Opinion: This article was very intriguing to read and learn from because I had no idea what kind of adaptions animals must make to survive in their environment. I never knew that some fish don't have spines. This goes to show that species would really have a hard time with a sudden change in their environment which is why some actually go extinct because they couldn't survive in the environment. This article helped me understand not only how the use of adaptions help animals survive in their environment, but also how humans must be very careful that they don't take advantage of the environment by making a sudden change without understanding how it could effect a species.
The picture above of the two sticklebacks shows how it has made it's adaption so it can survive in it's environment.
Questions:
- What other species do you know of that had to make an adaption so they could survive?
- Do you think if the pond stickleback had not made the adaption of its spine, it would have gone extinct?
- Do you think humans can seriously impact a species survival in their environment? How?
- If animals couldn't make adaptions, how do you think that would change the way the world is? Do you think there would be life?
Question three: I do feel people impact the survival of animals more than we realize. For one our over population is causing animals to not have space. Secondly as we pollute the air to such degree it affects all organisms. Human actions if not changed could really cause a great deal of harm to animals everywhere. To answer number four, if animals did not adapt i feel there would not be life. I feel earth would be filled with things like Eukaryotic organisms if that. Adaptions allow organism to thrive, grow and change into what they are and what they will become.
ReplyDeleteQuestion4: If animals couldn't make adaptions I think that we would have very few species because only the species that are most genetically gifted from the start will survive. If animals couldn't adapt then the animals that are prey will die off really soon and then the predators would have nothing to eat and since they can'y adapt then they will die to. So I think that if adaption is impossible, then having life would be very difficult.
ReplyDeleteReaction: I was really surprised after reading this because I would have thought that having hard spines would be good for the fish, but it was actually hurtful because then they were easier for dragon flies to catch.Who knew that dragonflies ate fish! Its a really good thing that they could adapt otherwise the whole population would probably become extinct.
I thought that this was an interesting article. I have never heard of the sticklebacks before so it was fun to learn about them and their very neat adaptations. I also agree that we have to be careful of what we do to the environment. We could change one thing and that could kill of a whole species that spend hundreds of years adapting to the environment that we just changed.
ReplyDeleteQuestion 1: I know that giraffes had to adapt to survive. They did not always have such long necks but in order to reach their food they adapted over time by growing longer necks.
Question 1: Beetle's are another type of species that experienced a type of adaptation in order to help them survive. For example, the first generation of beetle's had a low reproduction rate. When another generation was reproduced, a beetle with a high reproduction rate occurred. The beetle from the first generation only had 2 offspring while the second beetle had 6. With time, the high reproduction rate gene became more and more common. Eventually, the beetle with the low reproduction rate gene died off.
ReplyDelete