My bunny collection: Discussion Questions
Autor: isabela ziller | Publicado: 2011-08-29T16:37:00-07:00

After me, Leticia and Arminda were assigned the top of the mountain on the "Bunny Challenge", we had to formulate a hypothesis about whether the bunnies in our part of the mountain would survive or die based on his genes. Our hypothesis was " If a equal population of bunnies with an equal number of dominant and recessive genes goes to the top of a mountain, the ones with more (thicker) fur will be dominant over those with less (thin) fur". We had four and two different types of beans, that would represent the possible genes on the bunnies. The black beans represented the recessive gene (less fur) and the red beans represented the dominant gene (more fur). Since we were the top of the mountain, we needed more fur, then, we had more FF (dominant) genes. After a while playing with the beans (watching Arminda killing the ones that were Ff) we finally realize that the recessive gene don't have a chance in the top of the mountain (go FF). Our hypothesis was correct, the dominant gene won and we now we have more fluffy bunnies :DQuestions:1)What was your hypothesis?-" If a equal population of bunnies with an equal number of dominant and recessive genes goes to the top of a mountain, the ones with more (thicker) fur will be dominant over those with less (thin) fur".2)Based on your lab data, do you need to change your hypothesis? Explain.-No, I don't. Our hypothesis was correct and our data shows that. Over the five generations that we took the data from, we can clearly see that the FF gene is dominant over the ff gene. 3)Compare the number of alleles for the dominant characteristics with the number of alleles for the recessive characteristics.-In the first generation, both FF and ff are represented in our environment, but over the course of the years,each generation has less bunnies with the ff gene, because of the weather of the top of the mountain. 4)Compare the frequencies of the dominant allele to the frequencies of the recessive allele.-The allele frequency changes drastically after the 1st generation. As you can see in the picture, it goes from .5 to .17 (ff) and .5 to .83 (FF). 5)In a real bunny habitat new animals often come into the habitat (immigrate), and others leave the area (emigrate). How might emigration and immigration affect the gene frequency of F and f in this population of bunnies? How might you simulate this effect if you were to repeat this activity?-The emigration of a population may have reasons like the area, the local weather, the food and the predators that are around. The population of ff's might have emigrate instead of died. The population genes will change according to the area that they live in. If i was going to simulate this effect, I would take some of the Ff or ff that died (sad day), and put in a different cup labeled as emigration. This way, we can have an idea of how many bunnies emigrated.6)How do your results compare with the class data? If significantly different, why are they different?-Since we divided the class in three different groups, in three different environments, the data was different. My group was the top of the mountain, so we had more FF genes. The second group was the middle of the mountain, so they had more Ff genes. The third group was the bottom of the mountain, so they had more ff genes.7)How are the results of this simulation an example of evolution?-This simulation shows evolution because through our data you can see that the bunnies adapted them selves to the environment that they are living in. Our simulation started with 50 bunnies, 15 FF, 20 Ff and 15 ff. And in the end we had 15 bunnies, all of them FF.