Inbreeding Depression

About Me:
My name is Megan Touchton. I'm a 16 year old junior at Olathe North High School. I like to spend time with my friends and family. I like to sing and play volleyball. I have one dog named Angel. I have one older sister, Tina, and one younger half-brother, Christian. I live with my mom and my sister. Recently I’ve gotten a job at Toys R Us.

Inbreeding depression is the loss of other genes from the gene pool. Losing these less desirable genes is irreversible. Some people purposely phase out these genes so they can get the more desirable genes they want present. Inbreeding depression gives an advantage for the short term but in the long term it turns out to be not as helpful. Two main causes of inbreeding depression are continuous inbreeding and selective breeding. Though certain scientists say we should keep the random breeding to keep many different traits even ones we do not necessarily desire. It is considered most important to keep the gene pool as diverse as possible for the long term welfare of the species.



These two things cause the genetic diversity to be reduced in the long term. Genetic diversity means that the gene pool is prepared for a wide range of scenarios that could possibly happen to the species. The diversity makes an animal different from all the others. Some of the genes that are phased out can provide immunity to certain diseases or prepare them for food shortages. Some people say that genetic diversity is the key to survival.


Inbreeding happens when a diverse group of partners to mate with are not present. Inbreeding is when there is mating in related animals. A cause of inbreeding is when a species becomes endangered or the population in a certain area is low. This continuous inbreeding shrinks the genetic diversity. The first generation that is inbred usually has health or physical defects. Some of these disadvantages are reduced fertility, increased genetic disorders, fluctuating facial asymmetry, lower birth rate, higher infant mortality, slower growth rate, smaller adult size, loss of immune system function.


There has been inbreeding in humans, but now it is frowned upon by most of society now. Royal and noble families in Europe have close blood ties. People often got married to other family member to keep the blood ties strong. To the right is King Charles II of Spain, he was physically and mentally disabled, in large part due to generations of inbreeding. Some Egyptian pharaohs married their sisters. Often son of the old ruler and the ruler's oldest (half-) sister became the new ruler.




Selective inbreeding is used to get fixed traits that a breeder wants, and eliminated the genes that the breeder doesn’t want.Selective breeding among dogs is very common. Like for example a breeder for Doberman pinschers wouldn’t want to get a weak scrawny litter. He would want a strong big, healthy litter. But this breed had also been bred to be loving, caring, obedient and protective of its family.


In conclusion inbreeding depression gives the animal and advantage in the short term. But in the long term it’s a disadvantage making the animal unprepared for certain scenarios. With human interference we have learned how to store genetic information in gene banks in case of the extinction of a species, and help species that are a low population level. This opens up a whole new door to genetic engineering which would enable us to prepare any species for any scenario we could think of. We could make every species the best to live in its own environment eliminating natural selection.

Websites:
http://www.dog-breed-facts.com/articles/Groups-working-dog-breeds.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
http://www.lhasa-apso.org/health/divrsity.htm
http://cc.ysu.edu/~helorime/inbred1.html

Evolution

About Me:

My name is Garrett Powell and I go to Olathe north high school. I’m 6 foot 3 and I enjoy many different sports including soccer, swimming, and karate. I love animals and I enjoy taking care of them. I personally have way too many cats and 4 dogs along with 1 jungle carpet python and 1 bearded dragon and finally 2 birds. To pass the time I play video games and hang with friends. so now that i have told you will you go away.

The earth has been around for 4.2 billion years and humans have only been around for .0002 percent of that time. On that kind of scale we have been here for a blink of an eye, so how do we know what the earth looked like and how all the animals came to be. Well there are currently two explanations for that subject. One is evolution, the idea that we all evolved into what we are today or the other idea to put it simply , God. for years now evolution has been a subject of great turmoil between both the scientific community and the religious community. For years now many people never really understood why they fought over this subject so diligently. This paper should explain what evolution is and how it came to be such a controversial topic. Evolution is the change in traits of one species that are passed down through generations witch cause the species to change. These traits are the direct result of genes that were passed down from one generation to the next. When a mutation in the genes becomes more common and the others it is considered evolution. These mutations can happen randomly through genetic drift or non-randomly through natural selection. Some cases of evolution Charles Darwin’s finches. Each type of finch that went to a different area developed deferent beaks to better suit there environment. This does not mean that they moved and there beaks changed, that is not evolution. This change took several generations of finches before it was perfected.
Another example of evolution is the horse. It is one of the few animals that we actually have the full evolutionary history on. as you can see in the diagram the horse took millions of years to evolve. This shows how it took generations for small changes to take place. The horse for instance had its feet change little by little and it grew in size till it became what it is today. Scientist know this because all of the stages of the horse were preserved in fossil.
So far this doesn’t sound like such a controversial topic. But this explains it all, according to scientists and this data they believe we should have evolved from monkeys over millions of years of evolution. This is in direct opposition of the bible and the Christian and almost any other religions beliefs. as you can see from the picture this is what scientist think happened. This razes many questions on both sides. For instance if we evolved from monkeys then that just nullifies a lot of things that happened in the bible, or if you’re a strong believer in the bible this cannot be true. According to the bible we are direct descendants’ of Adam and eve not monkeys. This angered many religious leaders, and they defended themselves saying that god is absolute. And now for years they have been striking at each other relentlessly. Then the topic of what to teach in schools came up witch fired them both up. They both wanted there subject to be taught in school and wanted the other to banned from schools. This was a heated debate for quite some time before the schools decided to teach both but they couldn’t say witch one is right or wrong.

Camouflage and mimicry

About Me:
I'm Mike Sherman. I'm a senior at olathe north high school. I'm in a class called student naturalist, and this is a project for that class. I'm 17 years old. I like to skateboard, and that's about all.

Camouflage and mimicry are both techniques used by animals to evade preditors in an attempt to stay alive. Camouflage is blending in with the environment to the point that other things can't see you. It doesn't have to be the traditional shades of green and black splotches. You can camouflage to anything, simply by being in front of something that is the same color. Mimicry is pretending to be something else. A harmless herbavore could pretend to be a deadly predator to intimidate its' enemies. Many different animals use these techniques to insure there survival in the dog eat dog animal world. The strong will survive, but the sneaky have just as good of a chance.


Milk Snake (Above)...Coral Snake (Below)
An animal that uses mimicry to entice fear in it's enemies is the milk snake. The harmless milk snake is colored like the deadly coral snake. The only difference between the two is the order in which the colored stripes come. The coral snakes colored stripes go red, followed by yellow, followed by black. The milk snakes colored stripes come in the order of red, followed by black, followed by yellow. Many people remember this by the common saying "red and yellow killed a fellow, red and black friend to jack". There are some exceptions to this saying, but for the most common circumstances it stands correct.




Another user of mimicry is the Hawk Moth Catepillar. It cleverly mimics, or acts like, a snake to fool its predators. This is a very good defense mechanism for the nearly otherwise defenseless caterpillar. The crazy thing is, it really does look like a snake. Take a look for yourself.

Alot of various animals, both predators and prey, take advantage of the use of camouflage. Predators disquise themselves as various inanimate objects to draw the prey near, and prey does the same hoping to remain unseen, and alive. This technique is used by everything from insects and harmless creatures, to the most deadly animals in the world. Humans have even been known to use camouflage in many different tasks, from war to hide and seek. The top picture to the right is of a frog from Madagascar. I couldn't find its common name, but it blends in with the mud and trees of its surroundings. The next picture down is of the Arctic Fox. It's color changes with the seasons. During the winter season the fox is colored all white. During the other seasons its fur becomes darker, and develops dark patterns. Next down is the tartan swordfish. It blends in with the plantlife in the backround which helps it catch prey, when it unexpectantly swims by, and evade predators that don't even realize it's there as they swim by. Don't get it wrong though, camouflage isn't fool proof. Its not like bam, i blend in, i'm set for life. It just helps out in the situation.

Camouflage and mimicry are both very common in the animal kingdom, and i hope you can see, and understand the animal kingdom that much better.

- Mike Sherman

www.thewildones.org/Animals/camo.html
www.mongabay.com/0306.htm
www.saczoo.com/3_kids/20_camouflage/camouflage_mimicry.htm
www.bugsincyberspace.com/mimicry_and_camouflage.html
www.bioedonline.org/lessons/mimicry-camouflage.cfm