Download Comb bines with ZooMonta ana

Friday, April 11, 2014 at 12:30pm $6.50 per peerson Tickets: $
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SEMINAR LECTURE OUTLINE by Dr. William Mouat A. Zoological Constructs One possible method to teach the concepts of Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus and Species might be to have your students construct a new system to classify known life forms OR to “create” a new species and use the existing classification system. (For example, Wayne D. Barlowe’s popular book – Expeditions – narrates the journey through the ecosystem of a fictional world in a nearby star system (Darwin IV), which is teeming with friendly as well as dangerous indigenous life‐forms.) How would one create a classification chart for Barlowe’s flora and fauna? B. Ecology 1. Have you had difficulty communicating the urgency of contemporary, man‐made ecological problems to your students? How could or would you use an arts‐
integration system and/or approach to do so? 2. Which Biome or Biomes have had the most long‐lasting, irreversible damage to ecological systems due to encroachment by man? 3. Can you or have you designed an instructional unit that allows the students to develop new “cure” or treatment for a lingering and chronic environmental problem, ie. wakes from oil spills, factory explosions or nuclear accidents? Please describe the experiment or experiments along with the results. C. If you have had or currently have a student or a group of students who have an avid interest in biology, life‐sciences or zoology, describe one facet or aspect of your curriculum plan that does or will enhance their undergraduate life sciences curriculum comprehension, including but not limited to these topics:  Genetics and statistical analysis instruments (ie. Chi Square and T‐tests)  Mitochondrial DNA, genetic indicators, and genetic predispositions (interspecies and/or human)  Evolutionary Trends and Predictions for the Third Millennium  Viral Research – Theories and Practical Applications  Population studies re: food, prey and predators according to Biome  Marine plants, animals and mammals II.
Online Research for Teachers What is a definition for zoology? Quite simply, zoology is the division of biology that deals with the animal kingdom. It’s the scientific study of everything having to do with animals, just as botany is the scientific study of plants. Zoology is a huge field that covers the classification of every animal on earth as well as many broader fields of experimentation and inquiry related to animal life, and the field keeps expanding due to scientific advances that continue to open new areas of research. Defining zoology was relatively simple back in the 4th Century BC when the ancient Greek philosopher, Aristotle, gave us some of the first broad classifications of living things. In his treatise Meteorology, Aristotle first (and logically) divided all living things into plants and animals. It could be said that as soon as he wrote those words, biology, botany and zoology were born. Next, Aristotle divided animals into those with blood and those without–by which he actually meant animals without red blood, such as insects and crustaceans. He then further divided creatures into those that walked, those that flew, and those that swam. Aristotle’s classifications stayed in use until the 16th Century, when scientists during the Age of Enlightenment finally began taking a closer look at things. Today zoology–in fact, all of biology–has become much more complex, with living thing divided into five Kingdoms, of which animals (animalia) are just one, and the Kingdoms themselves divided into the ever‐smaller categories of Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus and, finally, Species. In fact, animal species are now so finely divided from one another based on their physical and genetic characteristics that we recognize millions of species and subspecies of different creatures. Twenty‐first Century zoologists can specialize in one of a variety of much narrower sciences including such fields as Arachnology (the study of spiders), Cetology (whales and dolphins), Ichthyology (fish), Herpetology (snakes) Ornithology (birds) and even Paleozoology (the study of extinct animals). But earlier we mentioned that in a definition for zoology, classification was only part–though a big part–
of the picture. In fact, the International Society of Zoological Sciences recognizes Taxonomy (aka classification) as one of only 17 branches in their definition of zoology. The others are Anatomy and Morphology, Animal Nutriology, Biochemistry, Biodiversity and Conservation, Biophysics, Developmental Biology, Ecology, Etiology, Evolution, Genetics, Molecular and Cell Biology, Paleontology, Physiology, Reproductive Biology and Zoogeography. –Paul Guernsey Published by Radamel May 10, 2008, Category: Zoology 13 Amazing Facts About Animals’ World A journey to the miraculous and secret world of animals. Every creature, as the art of the God, keep secrets and miracles inside it. We, as human, are the only creature who has an ability to think. Various animal kinds have different features to survive in wild nature. Some of them are discovered by scientists in the history. However, I believe there are many secrets of animals which have not been discovered yet. I have been researching on animals and noting whatever I’ve found interesting. After years, I’ve discovered many secrets of them which you don’t know yet. This is a great list of amazing facts of animals. 1. Dolphins sleep with one eye open 2. Crocodiles are blind in the water but very keen of sight in the air. 3. Crocodiles are color‐blind. 4. Owls are the only bird that can see the color blue. 5. Unlike all other insects, flies have five eyes. They have two large eyes and three smaller eyes between them. 6. Snails have four noses. 7. Giraffes have no vocal chords. 8. The tongues of chameleons are as long as its body or even longer. Some chameleon types have a tongue longer than two times of its body. 9. The tongues of chameleons are faster than a fighter jet. 10. The eyes of an ostrich are bigger than its brain. 11. An ant can lift fifty times its own weight. . 12. A cockroach can survive without its head for nine days. At the end of nine days it dies because of hunger. 13. A tarantula can survive for more than two years without food. Linnean classification definition A way of organizing living things. In biology, plants and animals have traditionally been classified by the structure of their bodies, in a descending hierarchy of categories: kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species. For example, human beings are classified as belonging to the animal kingdom, the phylum of chordates, the class of mammals, the order of primates, the genus Homo, and the species sapiens. The scheme is based on a system developed by the Swedish scientist Carolus Linnaeus in the eighteenth century. There is a debate among scientists about whether the traditional classification system should be retained. Some argue that classifying living things by their descent, with all descendants of a single ancestor being grouped together, is more in keeping with the ideas of evolution ( see cladistics). Others want to classify organisms by their genetic makeup, using sequences in DNA or RNA. Each of these schemes provides a different way of ordering living things, but there is no “right” way to accomplish this task. Note : Plants and animals are usually identified merely by genus and species; thus, human beings are given the scientific name Homo sapiens . The American Heritage® New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Biomes Biomes are defined as "the world's major communities, classified according to the predominant vegetation and characterized by adaptations of organisms to that particular environment" (Campbell 1996). The importance of biomes cannot be overestimated. Biomes have changed and moved many times during the history of life on Earth. More recently, human activities have drastically altered these communities. Thus, conservation and preservation of biomes should be a major concern to all. Here we group biomes into six major types: Freshwater
Marine
Desert
Forest
Grassland
Tundra
Conservation and preservation of biomes Because we share the world with many other species of plants and animals, we must consider the consequences of our actions. Over the past several decades, increasing human activity has rapidly destroyed or polluted many ecological habitats throughout the world. It is important to preserve all types of biomes as each houses many unique forms of life. However, the continued heavy exploitation of certain biomes, such as the forest, freshwater, and marine, may have more severe implications. A coral reef surrounds an island in French Polynesia. Forests are important as they are home to the most diverse biotic communities in the world. Hidden within these biomes are potential medicines and many thousands of unseen and undiscovered species. Also, forests have a global climate‐buffering capacity, so their destruction may cause large‐scale changes in global climate. Logging has depleted many old‐growth temperate forests. The increased demand for homes, paper, and other wood products have not allowed for much conservation. More recently, people have begun to realize that logging has cleared much of these forests. Wiser use of the forests and efforts to replant trees have helped to slow down the depletion of these communities. Tropical forests have fallen victim to timber exploitation, slash and burn farming, and clear‐felling for industrial use or cattle ranching, particularly in Latin America. Our increasing demand for meat products has spurred these events. For years, this destruction was occurring at a rapid rate. Over half of the world's original tropical forests are already gone. Public attention to this exploitation have helped to alleviate the problem somewhat, though many challenges are still to be faced. The freshwater and marine biomes are probably the most important of all the biomes. Their medium, water, is a major natural resource. Water is the basis of life, it supports life, and countless species live in it for all or part of their lives. Freshwater biomes supply us with our drinking water and water for crop irrigation. The world's oceans have an even greater effect on global climate than forests do. Water has a high capacity for heat, and because the Earth is mostly covered with water, the temperature of the atmosphere is kept fairly constant and able to support life. In addition to this climate‐buffering capacity, the oceans contain several billion photosynthetic plankton which account for most of the photosynthesis occurring on Earth. Without these, there might not be enough oxygen to support such a large world population and complex animal life. Freshwater biomes have suffered mainly from pollution. Runoff containing fertilizer and other wastes and industrial tailings enter into rivers, ponds, and lakes and tend to promote abnormally rapid algae growth. When these algae die, dead organic matter accumulates in the water. This makes the water unusable and it kills many of the organisms living in the habitat. Stricter laws have helped to slow down this thoughtless pollution. Overfishing and pollution have threatened to make oceans into ecological disaster areas. Industrial pollutants that are dumped upstream of estuaries have rendered many marine habitats unsuitable for life. Again, tighter regulations have been used to prevent further destruction of the ocean biomes. By educating people about the consequences of our actions, we can all gain a better understanding of how to preserve the Earth's natural biomes. The areas that have been destroyed the most will never regain their original forms, but conservation will help to keep them from getting worse. The original biomes pages were created in fall 1996 by the Biomes Group, Biology 1B class, section 115, at UC Berkeley; all were reformatted, with many new photos added, in March, 2007. Coral reef photo by Marguerite Gregory © 2004 California Academy of Sciences. Some Examples of Statistical Analysis Using a t‐Test Example #1 A researcher wishes to learn if a certain drug slows the growth of tumors. She obtained mice with tumors and randomly divided them into two groups. She then injected one group of mice with the drug and used the second group as a control. After 2 weeks, she sacrificed the mice and weighed the tumors. The weight of tumors for each group of mice is below. The researcher is interested in learning if the drug reduces the growth of tumors. Her hypothesis is: The mean weight of tumors from mice in group A will be less than the mean weight of mice in group 2. Group A Group B Treated with Drug Control‐ Not Treated
0.72 0.71 0.68 0.83 0.69 0.89 0.66 0.57 0.57 0.68 0.66 0.74 0.70 0.75 0.63 0.67 0.71 0.80 0.73 0.78 Mean = 0.675 0.742 A t‐test can be used to test the probability that the two means do not differ. The alternative is that tumors from the group treated with the drug will not weigh less than tumors from the control group. This is a one‐tailed test because the researcher is interested in if the drug decreased tumor size. She is not interested in if the drug changed tumor size. The values from the table above are entered into the spreadsheet as shown below.The t‐test shows that tumors from the drug group were significantly smaller than the tumors from the control group because p < 0.05. The researcher therefore accepts her hypothesis that the drug reduces the growth of tumors. Example #2 A researcher wishes to learn whether the pH of soil affects seed germination of a particular herb found in forests near her home. She filled 10 flower pots with acid soil (pH 5.5) and ten flower pots with neutral soil (pH 7.0) and planted 100 seeds in each pot. The mean number of seeds that germinated in each type of soil is below. Acid Soil Neutral Soil
pH 5.5 pH 7.0 42 43 45 51 40 56 37 40 41 32 41 54 48 51 50 55 45 50 46 48 Mean =
43.5 48 The researcher is testing whether soil pH affects germination of the herb. Her hypothesis is: The mean germination at pH 5.5 is different than the mean germination at pH 7.0. A t‐test can be used to test the probability that the two means do not differ. The alternative is that the means differ; one of them is greater than the other. This is a two‐tailed test because the researcher is interested in if soil acidity changes germination percentage. She does not specify if it increases or decreases germination. Notice that a 2 is entered for the number of tails below. The t‐test shows that the mean germination of the two groups does not differ significantly because p > 0.05. The researcher concludes that pH does not affect germination of the herb. Example #3 Suppose that a researcher wished to learn if a particular chemical is toxic to a certain species of beetle. She believes that the chemical might interfere with the beetle’s reproduction. She obtained beetles and divided them into two groups. She then fed one group of beetles with the chemical and used the second group as a control. After 2 weeks, she counted the number of eggs produced by each beetle in each group. The mean egg count for each group of beetles is below. Group 1 Group 2 fed chemical not fed chemical (control) 33 35 31 42 34 43 38 41 32 28 Mean = 32.7 40.3 The researcher believes that the chemical interferes with beetle reproduction. She suspects that the chemical reduces egg production. Her hypothesis is: The mean number of eggs in group 1 is less than the mean number of group 2. A t‐test can be used to test the probability that the two means do not differ. The alternative is that the mean of group 1 is greater than the mean of group 2. This is a 1‐tailed test because her hypothesis proposes that group B will have greater reproduction than group 1. If she had proposed that the two groups would have different reproduction but was not sure which group would be greater, then it would be a 2‐tailed test. Notice that a 1 is entered for the number of tails below. The results of her t‐test are copied below. The researcher concludes that the mean of group 1 is significantly less than the mean for group 2 because the value of P < 0.05. She accepts her hypothesis that the chemical reduces egg production because group 1 had significantly less eggs than the control. The Chi‐Squared Test Consider a set of 10 measurements of leaf‐size: {x1, x2, ..., x10}. where x1 is the size of the first leaf, etc. According to some expert, leaf sizes are supposed to be "normally" distributed with mean µ and standard deviation . Knowing all these numbers you could now calculate the quantity known as chi‐square: . where in this case there are 10 x values, so k=10. (This formula says: find how each x deviates from the mean µ, square each difference, add up all the squared‐differences and divide by the standard deviation squared.) More general versions of this formula would allow different means and standard deviations for each measurement. Roughly speaking we expect the measurements to deviate from the mean by the standard deviation, so: |(xi‐µ)| is about the same thing as . Thus in calculating chi‐square we'd end up adding up 10 numbers that would be near 1. More generally we expect to approximately equal k, the number of data points. If chi‐square is "a lot" bigger than expected something is wrong. Thus one purpose of chi‐square is to compare observed results with expected results and see if the result is likely. X2: a version of to test expected distribution In biology the most common application for chi‐squared is in comparing observed counts of particular cases to the expected counts. For example, the willow tree (Salix) is dioecious, that is, like people (and unlike most plants) a willow tree will have just male or female sex organs. One might expect that half of the willows are male and half female. If you examine N willow trees and count that x1 of them are male and x2 of them are female, you will probably not find that exactly x1=½N and x2=½N. Is the difference significant enough to rule out the 50/50 hypothesis? We could almost calculate the chi‐squared, but we don't know the standard deviation for each count. Never fear: most counts are distributed according to the Poisson distribution, and as such the standard deviation equals the square root of the expected count. Thus we can calculate X2: In our simple willow example there are just two cases so k=2, and the expected results are: E1=½N and E2=½N. Note that the Ei are generally not whole numbers even though the counts xi must be whole numbers. If there were more cases (say k cases), we would need to know the probability pi for each case and then we could calculate each Ei=piN, where N is determined by finding the total of the counts: Finally it should be noted that the technical differences between a Poisson distribution and a normal distribution cause problems for small Ei. As a rule of thumb, avoid using X2 if any Ei is less than 5. If k is large this technical difficulty is mitigated. III. Wild and Wooly Zoo Montana: Additional Topics for Teachers 1. If you were able to expand on a zoological unit using live specimens, how would this be accomplished? 2. How does art imitate life in the animal kingdom? Use the following possibilities as sources and/or class project inspirations for your classroom:  Bats  Winged Insects, Birds or Reptiles  Arachnids  Cartilaginous Fish vs. Bony Fish  Marine Mammals  Phasmids  Dinosaurs (could be any one or combination of all three periods in a “specialized species evolution”—Triassic, Jurassic or Cretaceous)  Specified Modern Carnivores  Specified Modern Herbivores  Specified Modern Omnivores 3. What is the most effective method of teaching the term “biome” using a combination of pictures, words, poetic images, music, sound and/or dramatic improvisation. Design a unit and describe how it would be applied/implemented. 4. For advanced life sciences courses, design a unit that specifies a minimum of three uses of the T‐
test in probability curves using a visual arts medium as a mnemonic tool. 5. One of the most widely‐used predictors in the realm of observation vs. expectation is the Chi Squared Test. How can a practical example of the Chi Squared test be taught using a variety of learning modalities and the integration of these modalities into a dramatic presentation, a visual presentation, a musical presentation, or a multi‐media presentation?