Download Northside Social Science Weekly Homework Packet Due before cla

HW
Northside Social Science Weekly 1
Homework Packet
Due before class starts on Tuesday, September 23, 2013.
Name: ________________________________Period: ________
Five Facts about Darwin:
1. He married his cousin. They were
married for 43 years and had 10
kids.
2. He was an abolitionist. He
published On the Origin of Species
in part to help the cause.
3. He had connections to Buddhism.
Some of his writing was influenced
by Buddhism tenets.
4. He influenced early psychology.
His ideas about the body as a
functional thing led to completely
different type of psychology that
is used today.
5. He shares a birthday with
Abraham Lincoln. February 12,
1809.
IMPORTANT REMINDERS:
 QUICK QUIZ THIS FRIDAY
TOPICS FOR THE WEEK:
NATURAL SELECTION, EVOLUTION, FITNESS, SELECTION, INVASIVE
SPECIES
Mr Burley
Tuesday September 17, 2013
Directions: Read the following article about research on the Galapagos Island finches
and answer the set of questions at the bottom of the page.
"When we made the comparison between the size of the offspring generation and the
population before selection, we found a measured, evolutionary response had taken
place and it was almost identical to what we had predicted."
-Peter Grant
Darwin thought that evolution took place over hundreds or thousands of years and was
impossible to witness in a human lifetime. Peter and Rosemary Grant have seen
evolution happen over the course of just two years.
The Grants study the evolution of Darwin's finches on the Galapagos Islands. The birds
have been named for Darwin, in part, because he later theorized that the 13 distinct
species were all descendants of a common ancestor. Each species eats a different type
of food and has unique characteristics developed through evolution. For example, the
cactus finch has a long beak that reaches into blossoms, the ground finch has a short
beak adapted for eating seeds buried under the soil, and the tree finch has a parrotshaped beak suited for stripping bark to find insects.
The Grants have focused their research on the medium ground finch, Geospiza
fortis, on the small island of Daphne Major. Daphne Major serves as an ideal site for
research because the finches have few predators or competitors. (The only other finch
on the island is the cactus finch.) The major factor influencing survival of the medium
ground finch is the weather, and thus the availability of food. The medium ground finch
has a stubby beak and eats mostly seeds. Medium ground finches are variable in size
and shape, which makes them a good subject for a study of evolution.
The first event that the Grants saw affect the food supply was a drought that occurred
in 1977. For 551 days the islands received no rain. Plants withered and finches grew
hungry. The tiny seeds the medium ground finches were accustomed to eating grew
scarce. Medium ground finches with larger beaks could take advantage of alternate
food sources because they could crack open larger seeds. The smaller-beaked birds
couldn't do this, so they died of starvation.
In 1978 the Grants returned to Daphne Major to document the effect of the drought on
the next generation of medium ground finches. They measured the offspring and
compared their beak size to that of the previous (pre-drought) generations. They found
the offsprings' beaks to be 3 to 4% larger than their grandparents'. The Grants had
documented natural selection in action.
While beak size is clearly related to feeding strategies, it is also related to reproduction.
Female finches tend to mate with males that have the same size beaks. These factors
together can add to the development of new species.
The Grants return each year to Daphne Major to observe and measure finches. They
have been collecting data on the finches for over 25 years and have witnessed natural
selection operating in different ways under different circumstances.
Mr Burley
Questions:
1. How did the Grant’s research confirm Darwin’s theory?
____________________________________________________________________________
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2. Why did they choose to research on Daphne Major?
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3. How did the first event in 1977 affect the populations of finches?
____________________________________________________________________________
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4. What trait was passed on to the new generation of finches in 1978?
____________________________________________________________________________
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5. Is this process researched by the Grant’s natural selection? Why or why not?
____________________________________________________________________________
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Wednesday September 18, 2013
Choose one animal that you have seen before, whether you were at the zoo, watching TV,
camping, or any other activity. Think back to that animal’s adaptations and traits. What benefit
did those traits give that animal? How did they make it more fit for its environment? Write out
at least four traits that the animal possessed, and state in a few words how each trait would
increase the fitness of the organism.
Organism Name:_________________________________
1.___________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
2.___________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
Mr Burley
3.___________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
4.___________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
Are All Invasive Species Bad?
Directions – Read the following article and complete the questions at the end of the
reading.
The pages of ecological history are filled with woeful tales of destruction from non-native
species—organisms that originated elsewhere.
Kudzu, a fast-growing vine imported from Japan, now chokes out many native plants across the
southern United States, Zebra mussels native to the Caspian Sea have reduced the food
supplies of native fishes in the Great Lakes, and rats imported to New Zealand have decimated
the native bird populations.
Examples of the damages caused by these so-called "invasive species" are seemingly as endless
as the amount of battles waged against them.
But are all non-native species bad?
Biologist Mark Davis says no. Davis, a professor from Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota,
believes it's time to raise the white flag against non-native species. Most non-native species, he
said, are harmless—or even helpful.
In a letter published in the journal Nature this past June, Davis and 18 other ecologists argued
that these destructive invasive species—or those non-native species that cause ecological or
economic harm—are only a tiny subset of non-native species, and that this tiny fraction has
basically given all new arrivals a bad name.
Take Devil's claw—a plant that produces hooked pods for increased seed dispersal—which was
imported to the Australian outback during the 19th century as a horticultural oddity. Despite
research failing to show that the species has any significant effects on local biodiversity or
nutrient cycling, the government has spent the last 20 years trying to remove this plant from
the Australian landscape. Efforts that according to Davis are an unwise use of scarce resources
that automatically target non-native species simply because they're newly arrived immigrants.
"What's native and non-native is quite arbitrary," Davis said. "It depends on what time in the
past a species has to have been there to be considered native, and everything after that is nonnative. Unless a species evolved in a particular site, all species are ultimately introduced."
Many of the species we see as part of the quintessential American landscape—honeybees,
earthworms, and even the amber waves of grain celebrated in song—are actually imports from
Europe. Davis said that most species arrive from somewhere else, so someone's definition of
"native" depends on how far back they turn the clock. Turn it back far enough, and essentially
every living organism could fit the definition.
Mr Burley
The origin of a species may not tell you everything about it, said University of Tennessee Knoxville ecologist Dan Simberloff, but it tells you a lot. The very next month, Simberloff and
141 fellow ecologists published a formal objection, also published in Nature, to the Davis group
original piece.
If a non-native species lacks natural predators in their new environment and is able to find
suitable food and habitat, their numbers can skyrocket -- the hallmark of an invasive species.
This sudden takeover can leave native species with no food and no place to live. Such
population growth and expansion of non-native species to invasive status can take years,
sometimes generations until the conditions are just right or if the initial colonizations fail. But
once a non-native species turns invasive, there's no going back. Invasive species are
remarkably hard to expel from their new locale once they establish themselves.
Also, Simberloff said that plenty of native species are pesky and harmful, but they rarely cause
the large-scale damage done by non-native species. In that sense, it's both fair and prudent to
act quickly and decisively against newly arrived species—but this move is less about mistrust of
non-native species and more about trying to prevent damage from a potential invasive species.
According to Simberloff, of the 7,000 estimated non-native species present in North America,
approximately 1,000 are considered invasive. Clearly, invasive species are in the minority, but
their small numbers don't keep them from causing hundreds of billions of dollars in economic
and ecological harm. If researchers waited to evaluate the harm caused by a non-native
species, as Davis proposed, conservation managers would lose valuable time in which to act.
Another reason is that the harm done by an invasive species isn't always immediate. Sometimes
a non-native species can arrive and live quietly for years before erupting into a full-fledged
invasive species. The Brazilian pepper shrub was imported to Florida from South America in the
mid-19th century as an ornamental plant, and posed no problems for nearly a century. But in
the 1930s it began to spread unchecked, and now infests over 700,000 acres across Florida, the
plant's dense canopy inhibiting the growth of native species.
"We're not good at figuring out which species might be damaging," Simberloff said.
But the management of invasive species usually happens on a very tight budget, said Peter
Kareiva, chief scientist at The Nature Conservancy. Every day, according to Kareiva,
policymakers and ecologists try to figure out which species might be harmful, which invasive
species are doing the most damage, and which of these might respond best to eradication
efforts.
"Most ecologists think in terms of invasive or not invasive," Kareiva said. "If a species is nonnative and not invasive, then we wouldn't pay much attention to it."
Researchers have spent years trying to answer the question of what makes a non-native species
become invasive, but Kareiva would like to see them answer another question.
"When invasive species first show up, can we predict which ones are going to become major
modifiers of ecosystems or harm other species?" asked Kareiva.
The answer to this question may help ecologists and conservation managers take more steps to
maintain native biodiversity and ecosystem functioning—the ultimate goal of all sides in this
debate.
Mr Burley
Questions:
1. Do you agree with Dr. Davis’ statement that states that not all non- native species
“bad”? Why or Why not?
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
2. What qualities allow non-native species to become invasive?
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
Thursday September 18, 2013
Directions: Analyze the following organisms and their environments. Identify three physical
traits that allow the organism to survive in its habitat. Finally, predict what other adaptations
organisms in the habitat may have.
1.
a) __________________________________________________________________________________________
b) __________________________________________________________________________________________
c) __________________________________________________________________________________________
d) Other adaptations - __________________________________________________________________
Mr Burley
2.
a) __________________________________________________________________________________________
b) __________________________________________________________________________________________
c) __________________________________________________________________________________________
d) Other Organisms - __________________________________________________________________________
3.
a) __________________________________________________________________________________________
b) __________________________________________________________________________________________
c) __________________________________________________________________________________________
d) Other Organisms - __________________________________________________________________________
Mr Burley
Friday September 19, 2013
Directions – In the space below, you are given a description of Manhattan before it was
inhabited by humans. After reading the description, compare and contrast the environment in
the venn diagram. Then, identify the selective pressures that we introduced to the environment
through urbanization. After identifying the pressures, state how the animals in the city have
adapted.
Long before its hills were bulldozed and its wetlands paved over, Manhattan was an extraordinary
wilderness of towering chestnut, oak, and hickory trees, of salt marshes and grasslands with turkey, elk,
and black bear—"as pleasant a land as one can tread upon," Hudson reported. Sandy beaches ran along
stretches of both coasts on the narrow, 13-mile-long island, where the Lenape feasted on clams and
oysters. More than 66 miles of streams flowed through Manhattan, and most of them sheltered a beaver
or two—making José's appearance, in Sanderson's eyes, a rare glimpse of the way things used to be.
"You might find it difficult to imagine today, but 400 years ago there was a red maple swamp right here
in Times Square," he said one day not long ago, as he waited for the light to cross Seventh Avenue.
Dressed in black jeans and a Windbreaker, he didn't look much different from the tourists beside him on
the curb. But unlike them, in his mind he was following a trail along a swampy creek that disappeared
beneath the entrance to the Marriott Marquis Hotel at the corner of Broadway and West 46th Street.
"Just over there was a beaver pond," he said, as a bus rumbled by. "It would have been a good place for
deer, wood ducks, and all the other animals associated with streams. Brook trout probably, as well as eels,
pickerel, and sunfish. It would have been much quieter, of course, although today's not so bad."
Complete the venn diagram for the environment of the city today vs before humans settled.
Before Humans
After Humans
Mr Burley
What selective pressures did humans introduce? What adaptations do you see in the city’s
animals to deal with these changes? Provide at least 3 examples of each.
_________________________________________________________________________________
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Mr Burley