Botany 120 Biome and genetics review

Genetics

1. How is a phenotype different from a genotype?

2. How is the law of segregation different from the law

of independent assortment?

3. What is an allele?

4. If a pair of alleles are the same we call this

genotype _____,and if the alleles are different

the genotype is called _____.

5. In four o'clock flowers, the petal color is either red,

pink, or white. How do you think flower color

is inherited and why?

6. A gene that is only expressed if it is in the homozygous

condition must be a ______ gene.

7. In a certain species of flower there are two petal colors,

blue or red.If two blue flowered plants are crossed,

the offspring are always blue.If two red plants are crossed,

sometimes only red flowering plants are produced, while

other times both red and blue flowering plants are

produced. If a red plant and blue plant are crossed,

sometimes the offspring are all red, while other

times both red and blue offspring

are produced. Which color is dominant?

8. A plant that breeds true for tall is crossed with one that

breeds true for short. All of the offspring in the F-1 are tall.

The F-1 generation is allowed to self-fertilize, and the

F-2 are 3/4 tall and 1/4 short.

a. which allele is dominant, the one for tallness or shortness?

b. what is the genotype of an F-1 individual?

c. what are the genotypes of the parental generation?

9. In peas, purple flowers (P) are dominant to white flowers (p),

and yellow seeds are dominant (Y) to green(y). If two plants

heterozygous for both traits are crossed, what proportion

of the offspring will have purple flowers and

produce green seeds?

10. Which of the following are homozygous

genotypes?

a. AABb

b. aabb

c. AaBb

d. aaBB

e. Aabb

Biomes

1. What are two important factors in determining what

type of Biome one will find in a given area?

2. What causes the seasons here in North America?

3. What are three strategies plants have developed to survive

in the cold dry,and sometimes dark conditions of the Tundra?

4. What is a rain shadow, and how does it account for different

plant communities occurring at the same latitude, but on

opposites sides of a mountain range?

5. In what biomes does fire play an important role, and

what is this role?

6. To what kind of environmental stresses are the plants

in the chaparral adapted?

7. How is a deciduous forest different from a coniferous

forest, other than the types of trees found in each?

8. Why don't grasslands become forests?

9. What is the one thing all deserts have in common?

Genetics and Evolution Review Bio 120

1. How do biologists define evolution?

2. What is a population?

3. What islands were important to Charles Darwin's thinking on evolution?

4. Biogeography is how living things are distributed around the world. How was Darwin surprised by the the biogeography he observed on his trip around the world?

5. While fossils support the theory of evolution, we can't rely on the fossil record ever being complete. Why?

6. How does the existence of fossils support the theory of evolution?

7. How did LaMarck explain inheritance?

8. What was the hypothesis of catastrophism?

9. While the theory of evolution does not indicate humans came from chimps, it does indicate a _________________________ between chimps and humans.

10. Upon what observations did Darwin base his theory of evolution by natural selection?

11. What must occur for a new species to evolve?

12. What isolating mechanisms help maintain a species as a distinct group?

13. Describe how allopatric speciation could happen.

14. What is usually involved in sympatric speciation?

15. How is stabilizing selection different from directional selection?

16. Is their a plan to evolution?

17. What mechanisms of evolution can lead to less genetic diversity in a population?

18. What is a gene pool?

19. Who was Alfred Wallace and why is he an important figure in the history of the theory of evolution?

20. What is the source of all new genes in a population?

21. What mechanism of evolution keeps separate populations from being isolated?

Genetics

1. How is a phenotype different from a genotype?

2. How is the law of segregation different from the law of independent assortment?

3. What is an allele?

4. If a pair of alleles are the same we call this genotype _____, and if the alleles are different the genotype is called _____.

5. PKU is a recessive disorder. If "dad" has PKU , and "mom" is homozygous dominant, what is the chance a child will have PKU?

6. In four o'clock flowers, the petal color is either red, pink, or white. How do you think flower color is inherited and why?

7. Hemophilia is an X-linked disorder. If mom carries the gene, and dad is normal, what is the chance the couple's daughter will be a carrier? What is the chance the daughter will have hemophilia?

What is the chance their son will have hemophilia?

8. Mom has O blood, and Dad has AB. They have a child with B blood. Is this possible?

9. There are three alleles present in the population for blood type. This is called _____________

10. A gene that is only expressed if it is in the homozygous condition must be a ______ gene.

I1. In a certain species of flower there are two petal colors, blue or red. If two blue flowered plants are crossed, the offspring are always blue. If two red plants are crossed, sometimes only red flowering plants are produced, while other times both red and blue flowering plants are produced. If a red plant and blue plant are crossed, sometimes the offspring are all red, while other times both red and blue offspring are produced. Which color is dominant?

Nesting season in the desert

I was out at Joshua Tree National Monument, and the Morongo Valley Preserve this weekend. Lot's of nesting birds around including these:

Young red-tailed hawk looks down at a visitor.

Stretching the wings, and building up the flight muscles. This hawk won't leave the nest until it is as big as its parents.

Great-horned owl chick still in its fluffy down feathers.

Botany review photosynthesis and cell respiration

1. What are the differences between aerobic and anaerobic respiration, and which is more efficient?

2. What are NAD+ and FAD used for?

3. What are the three steps in aerobic respiration, and where does each occur?

4. During which step of cellular respiration is the most ATP made?

5. During aerobic respiration, how many ATPs are made from one molecule of glucose in most cells?

6. What is the role of oxygen in aerobic respiration?

7. Describe how the ATP is made during chemiosmosis

8. What is produced by your muscle cells if there is not enough oxygen available at the end of glycolysis for aerobic respiration to continue?

9. Yeasts do a kind of anaerobic respiration called ____________, and produce ___________ and _________ along with 2 ATP

10. What are the important end products of the Citric Acid Cycle, and what happens to each of these products?



Here are the photosynthesis questions for review:

1. Which colors of light are most strongly absorbed by chlorophyll?
2. How is oxygen released during photosynthesis?
3. Why is water needed in photosynthesis?
4. What are the products of the light dependent reactions?
5. What is made in the light independent reactions?
6. What is the role of RUBP in photosynthesis?
7. What kind of plants use PEP and what advantage does it give them?
8. How are CAM plants different from others in the way they do photosynthesis?
9. What kind of organisms can do photosynthesis?
10. Where inside the chloroplast do the light dependent reactions happen?

Spring in the Mojave Desert

This diminutive plant has a wonderful flower. This is Lilac Sunbonnet Langloisia setosissima. The whole plant is about 2 inches tall. Check out the blue pollen.

Climbing milkweed, Sarcostemma cyanchoidies, is an important host plant for the larvae of butterflies. Notice the tendrils it uses to cling to other plants for support.

Desert Five Spot. Eremalche rotundifloria. How about that? A scientific name that is very logical. Rotundifloria, round flower. These flowers look like little domes until just before they wilt, then they open up to show off their spots.

Hey, that's no flower! This rattle snake was snoozing in the shade of a creosote shrub until we rudely walked by and disturbed it.

One of the best things about camping is seeing the sunrise.

The clouds were beautiful on Saturday.

A rainbow cloud

Review for exam 4 Bio 120

1. What are two important factors in determining what type of Biome one will find in a given area?

2. What causes the seasons here in North America?

3. What are three strategies plants have developed to survive in the cold dry,and sometimes dark conditions of the Tundra?

4. What kind of adaptations have animals developed to survive in:
A. The tundra
B. The deserts
C. Coniferous forests

5. What is a rain shadow, and how does it account for different plant communities occurring at the same latitude, but on opposites sides of a mountain range?

6. In what biomes does fire play an important role, and what is this role?

7. To what kind of environmental stresses are the plants and animals in the chaparral adapted?

8. How is a deciduous forest different from a coniferous forest, other than the types of trees found in each?


1. Define resource partitioning and give an example of it.

2. How is a parasite different from a parasitoid?

3. How is a parasite different from a predator?

4. How are density dependent limiting factors different from density independent limiting factors? Give examples of each.

5. Coevolution happens also between parasites and their hosts. Why is this not surprising?

6. Define and give examples of the following: Mutualism, Commensalism, social parasite.

7. What are common strategies predators use to capture prey, and common defenses found in prey?

8. Draw a food web that could occur in your backyard or here at Cerritos. Include all the trophic levels we discussed in class.

9. Why are there fewer members of the upper trophic levels as compared with primary consumers or the producers?

10. What is carrying capacity?


9. Why don't grasslands become forests?

10. What is the one thing all deserts have in common?
Labels: Biomes

Botany Review Questions Exam 3

Evolution:

1. How do biologists define evolution?

2. What is a population?

3. What islands were important to Charles Darwin's thinking on evolution?

4. Biogeography is how living things are distributed around the world. How was Darwin surprised by the the biogeography he observed on his trip around the world?

5. While fossils support the theory of evolution, we can't rely on the fossil record ever being complete. Why?

6. How does the existence of fossils support the theory of evolution?

7. How did LaMarck explain inheritance?

8. What was the hypothesis of catastrophism?

9. While the theory of evolution does not indicate humans came from chimps, it does indicate a _________________________ between chimps and humans.

10. Upon what observations did Darwin base his theory of evolution by natural selection?

11. What is adaptive radiation, and give an example of adaptive radiation in plants.

12. How has evidence from molecular biology supported the theory of evolution?

13. What is sympatric speciation, and how is it different from allopatric speciation?

Bacteria

1. What is the name of the bacteria that do photosynthesis,and what can they do in addition to photosynthesis?

2. In what major way are bacterial cells different from plant cells?

3. Describe how bacterial cells can reproduce.

4. What is in the cell walls of bacteria?

5. What is a capsule used for?

6. What are the three basic shapes of bacteria?

7. What roles do bacteria play in the ecosystem where they are found?

8. How are Archea different from bacteria?

9. Some bacteria live in the roots of plants. What are they doing there?

10. What is a plasmid?

Fungi Questions

1. How are fungi classified?

2. What role do fungi play typically in their habitat?

3. How are fungi different from plants?

4. How do fungi feed?

5. What does heterokaryotic mean?

6. How do fungi spread out in their habitat?

7. The body of a fungus is a thread like structure called a ____

8. A mass of the answer in question 7 is call a ____

9. A lichen is made of a ____ and a ____. What is the ecological role of lichens?

Land Plants, Mosses and Ferns

1. Liverworts and mosses both have a dominant ________ generation

2. What are three ways plants are adapted to life on land?

3. What organisms are believed to be the ancestors of land plants?

4. Sporophytes do what kind of cell division to make spores?

5. Are gametophytes are haploid or diploid?

6. Why are most mosses small?

7. What do ferns have that is missing in mosses and liverworts?

8. Why are horsetails also called scouring rushes?

9. The dominannt generation in the ferns is the ____ generation

10. Under the leaves one can find ____ in ferns

Gymnosperms

1. What advancement is seen in the gymnosperms compared to the ferns?

2. How are Gingkos and cycads different from conifers?

3. What is in a male cone? What is in a female cone?

4. How are confirs adapted to cold dry climates?

5. What does it mean if a plant is monecious?

6. Ephedra belongs to what division of plants?

7. What is the male gametophyte in the conifers?

Angiosperms

1. What is the function of these parts of the flower?
petals
sepals
anther
ovary
stigma
style

2. Other than the flower, what other advantage do the flowering plants have over the gymnosperms?

3. What is the function of fruit?

4. How is an imperfect flower different from a perfect flower? How is a complete flower different from an incomplete flower?

Carrizo Plain National Monument

The Carrizo Plain is in a remote area of Southern California between the I-5 and San Luis Obispo. It is what California may have been like hundreds of years ago. It is an open expanse of grasslands with gentle rolling hills. It is quiet. Wind and birds are all one hears along with an occasional drone of bees pollinating the flowers at this time of year. There are no gas stations, or stores nearby. The campground has no water, and you pack out what you bring in. Go there.

Owl's clover

Great horned owl in nest. The campground where we stayed had some of the only trees in the area. Consequently there were a host of bird species in the area.

Moonrise over the Temblor Hills

Red-tailed hawk being harassed by a red-winged black bird

The campground shortly after dawn

Wild Hyacinth

In the hills behind the campground

Miles of fiddleneck and Phacelia gave the floor of the plain an orange and purple glow

California poppy

Stork's bill and goldfields paint the fields and hillsides

Bio 120 Review Exam 3

Here's some questions to make those brain cells churn out the ATP!

1. What are the differences between aerobic and anaerobic respiration, and which is more efficient?

2. What are NAD+ and FAD used for?

3. What are the three steps in aerobic respiration, and where does each occur?

4. During which step of cellular respiration is the most ATP made?

5. During aerobic respiration, how many ATPs are made from one molecule of glucose in most cells?

6. What is the role of oxygen in aerobic respiration?

7. Describe how the ATP is made during chemiosmosis

8. What is produced by your muscle cells if there is not enough oxygen available at the end of glycolysis for aerobic respiration to continue?

9. Yeasts do a kind of anaerobic respiration called ____________, and produce ___________ and _________ along with 2 ATP

10. What are the important end products of the Citric Acid Cycle, and what happens to each of these products?



Here are the photosynthesis questions for review:

1. Which colors of light are most strongly absorbed by chlorophyll?
2. How is oxygen released during photosynthesis?
3. Why is water needed in photosynthesis?
4. What are the products of the light dependent reactions?
5. What is made in the light independent reactions?
6. What is the role of RUBP in photosynthesis?
7. What kind of plants use PEP and what advantage does it give them?
8. How are CAM plants different from others in the way they do photosynthesis?
9. What kind of organisms can do photosynthesis?
10. Where inside the chloroplast do the light dependent reactions happen?

More Review Questions about Plants:
1. Compare and contrast the movement of water and food in plants. Include in your answer what kinds of tissues and processes are involved in both.

2. Xylem is functional when dead at maturity while phloem is functional only when alive. Why?

3. In phloem, what is the role of the companion cell?

4. What is the difference between xylem in flowering plants and the xylem found in gymnosperms?

5. What is cohesion of water, and how is this different from adhesion?

6. What part of the root absorbs water?

7. What is the function of the anther in the flower?

8. Which of the following is where one would find ovules?
A. in an anther
B. in the ovary
C. in the stigma
D. in the style

9. Ovules are
A. eggs
B. spores that will become pollen
C. spores that will become eggs
D. immature seeds
E. pollen grains

10. In double fertilization the first sperm fertilizes the egg and the second
A. dies
B. is only used if the first sperm cell dies
C. fertilizes another egg
D. fertilizes a haploid endosperm mother cell to make diploid endosperm
E. fertilizes a diploid ( n+n) endosperm mother cell to make triploid endosperm

11. What is the function of fruit?

12. Microspores become
A. the embryo sac
B. the mature male gametophyte
C. pollen grains
D. all of the above
E. only B and C above

The Antelope Valley

The California Poppy Reserve had some blooms, but the most of the hillsides were not in bloom yet. However, after driving around on the roads around the reserve, we saw carpets of goldfields, poppies, but very few lupine.

We saw thousands of poppies, but only one yellow one.

Goldfields and Poppies

The sepals of the poppy flower cover the bud, then fall off as the bloom opens

I noticed this poppy was opening up, and as I was taking photos of it...

...the sepal popped right off.

Where to see wildflowers in Southern California

Desert Dandelion and Phacelia, Mojave National Preserve

Here's a list of some of my favorite places, however, there are many more areas to explore!

Antelope Valley Poppy Reserve

Peak bloom is usually late March, you can see California poppies, goldfields, owl’s clover and others.

Anza Borrego State Park

Desert lilies, sand verbena, desert primroses and more

Bloom is happening right now!

Carrizo Plain National Monument

Amazing fields of flowers in a very remote area. Lots of dirt roads.

Death Valley National Park

The peak bloom should be late this month into mid April

Yucca buds, Joshua Tree National Park

Joshua Tree National Park

It was snowing in Joshua Tree two weeks ago. According to the ranger I talked to, peak bloom in park expected late March to Mid April.

Mojave National Preserve

Desert lilies, evening primrose, desert dandelions, Phacelia, sand verbena and more!

The Santa Rosa Plateau Ecological Reserve

Amazing! Over 8,000 acres of oak savanna, chaparral, and grasslands

39400 Clinton Keith Road is located at the southern end of the Santa Ana Mountains in southwest Riverside County, near the city of Murrieta, 92562. I just love this place!

Wildflower “ Hotlines”

Desert Wildflower Hotline

Theodore Payne Foundation

Link to other Wildflower info sites. This link will give you dozens of places to visit to see the flowers.

Click here to go to a page full of places to see wildflowers

Recommended desert wildflower books:

Mojave Desert Wildflowers by Pam Mac Kay. (2003)

Features lots of information about how the plants were used by Native Americans. Full color photos, great descriptions of plants, and interesting comments about them.

Wildflowers of the Colorado Desert by Jon Mark Stewart (1993)

The Colorado Desert is a part of the Sonoran Desert that extends into California. It includes the Anza-Borrego area as well as parts of Joshua Tree National Park

Stealing electrons from single celled algae to generate electric power

Chlamydomonas, a single celled algae

New Scientist has a report on its webpage about scientists who inserted tiny gold electrodes into single celled algae called Chlamydomonas, to syphon off some high energy electrons created during photosynthesis. The electrons were then used to generate electricity.

The process was less efficient at generation of electricity that a solar cell, and would be hard to do on a large scale, but the researchers involved believe they can make the process more efficient in the future.

You can read the whole article here

The Santa Rosa Plateau and Chocolate Lilies

I love the Santa Rosa Plateau. There are miles of trails, vernal pools, amazing wildflowers in the spring, and peace and quiet. All this only a few miles from the I-15. The Plateau is over 8,000 acres of what Southern California used to be like. It was saved from a huge housing development in the early 1990's by a local group of citizens and the Nature Conservancy, and is now part of the Riverside County Park system.

Chocolate Lilies were scattered in the grasses along the trails

Red-Tailed hawks were riding the thermals in the late morning

This Red-Shouldered Hawk was doing an aerial display, swooping up and down over the trees.

Ground pinks were along the trail near the large vernal pool.

Wild Hyacinth

Anza-Borrego State Park is in bloom!

The wildflower season in Southern California is underway. Anza Borrego State Park has blooms of these wonderful evening primrose, and desert verbena. The primroses bloom in the evening, and are pollinated by a large moth. The blooms then fade the next day.

Desert sunflower and sand verbena

Datura blossom opening. All parts of the Datura plant are poisonous.

Phacelia and chicory

Barrel cactus blossom with a pollinator

Another group of desert primrose

Barrel cactus blooms

Desert lily and sand verbena

Lupine

Joshua Tree National Park should be blooming in late March to mid-April. However, I hear chocolate lilies are in bloom at the Santa Rosa Plateau. Guess where I am headed tomorrow morning!