Doug Schemske is a biologist who studies plants from around the world. Doug and his research team carry out experiments with the plant species Mouse-ear Cress, or Arabidopsis thaliana. They like this species because it is easy to grow in both the lab and field. Arabidopsis is very small and lives for just one year. It grows across most of the globe and in a wide range of latitudes and climates. Arabidopsis is also able to pollinate itself and produce many seeds, making it possible for researchers to grow many individuals to use in their experiments. Doug chose Arabidopsis populations in Scandinavia and the Mediterranean for his research on local adaptation because those two locations have very different climates. The populations may have adapted to have the highest survival and reproduction based on the climate of their home location. To deal with sudden freezes and cold winters in Scandinavia, plants may have evolved freeze tolerance traits, which produces chemicals that act like antifreeze. These chemicals accumulate in their tissues to keep the water from turning into ice and forming crystals. To see whether freeze tolerance was driving local adaptation, Doug set up an experiment to identify which plants survived after freezing. Doug collected seeds from several different populations across Scandinavia and the Mediterranean. He chose locations that had different latitudes because latitude affects how cold an area gets over the year. High latitudes (Scandinavia) are generally colder and low latitudes (Mediterranean) are generally warmer. Doug grew more seedlings for this experiment, and then, when they were a few days old, he put them in a freezer. Doug counted how many seedlings froze to death, and how many survived, and he used these numbers to calculate the percent survival for each population. To gain confidence in his results, he did this experiment with three replicate genotypes per population. Doug noticed the INNF Scandinavian plant populations had the highest rate of survival in the deep freezer. Explain how the genetic information in the INNF populations increased their rate of survival in Scandinavia. Discuss the factors that cause populations to change over time.
Doug Schemske is a biologist who studies plants from around the world. Doug and his research team carry out experiments with the plant species Mouse-ear Cress, or Arabidopsis thaliana. They like this species because it is easy to grow in both the lab and field. Arabidopsis is very small and lives for just one year. It grows across most of the globe and in a wide range of latitudes and climates. Arabidopsis is also able to pollinate itself and produce many seeds, making it possible for researchers to grow many individuals to use in their experiments.
Doug chose Arabidopsis populations in Scandinavia and the Mediterranean for his research on local adaptation because those two locations have very different climates. The populations may have adapted to have the highest survival and reproduction based on the climate of their home location.
To deal with sudden freezes and cold winters in Scandinavia, plants may have evolved freeze tolerance traits, which produces chemicals that act like antifreeze. These chemicals accumulate in their tissues to keep the water from turning into ice and forming crystals. To see whether freeze tolerance was driving local adaptation, Doug set up an experiment to identify which plants survived after freezing. Doug collected seeds from several different populations across Scandinavia and the Mediterranean.
He chose locations that had different latitudes because latitude affects how cold an area gets over the year. High latitudes (Scandinavia) are generally colder and low latitudes (Mediterranean) are generally warmer. Doug grew more seedlings for this experiment, and then, when they were a few days old, he put them in a freezer. Doug counted how many seedlings froze to death, and how many survived, and he used these numbers to calculate the percent survival for each population. To gain confidence in his results, he did this experiment with three replicate genotypes per population.
Doug noticed the INNF Scandinavian plant populations had the highest rate of survival in the deep freezer. Explain how the genetic information in the INNF populations increased their rate of survival in Scandinavia. Discuss the factors that cause populations to change over time.
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