Zebra Subspecies

There are three extant (still living) species of zebras. Among those species, there are 8 subspecies, one of which is extinct.

Genus: Equus

-Subgenus: Hippotigris

-Plains Zebra, Equus quagga

-Quagga, Equus quagga quagga (extinct)

-Burchell's Zebra, Eguus quagga burchellii

-Grant's Zebra, Equus quagga boehmi

-Selous' Zebra, Equus quagga borensis

-Chapman's Zebra, Equus quagga chapmani

-Crawshay's Zebra, Equus quagga crawshayi

-Mountain Zebra, Equus zebra

-Cape Mountain Zebra, Equus zebra zebra

-Hartmann's Mountain Zebra, Equus zebra hartmannae

-Subgenus: Dolichohippus

-Grevy's Zebra, Equus grevyi

The plains zebra is the most common, and has about twelve subspecies distributed across much of southern and eastern Africa. Grevy's zebra is the rarest species, and is classified as endangered. Although zebra species may have overlapping ranges, they do not interbreed. In captivity, crosses between zebras and other equines have produced several distinct hybrids, including the zebroid, zeedonk, zony, and zorse.

1. What are the typical physical attributes of a zebra? What are the purposes of the stripes?

2. Classify the zebra for each of the following:

Kingdom:

Phylum:

Class:

Order:

Family:

Genus:

Subgenus:

Classifying Living Things-Discovery

Search the Internet for taxonomic classifications of recently discovered species. What was the basis for classifying them? Who gets to name a new species? Is there any check on irresponsible naming?

http://101science.com/Taxonomy.htm
Classifying

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=94886658-Naming

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/01/photogalleries/100120-new-species-pictures-ecuador-snake-frog-gecko/
Newly Discovered Species

1. Find three species that were recently discovered. Classify one of them.

Classifying Living Things - Extinction

The fossil record shows that about four millions years ago the vast majority of species that

have existed are now extinct. In order for an animal to be classified as extinct, it must not have been seen in the past 50 years. Background (natural) extinction refers to the naturally occurring extinction of a species. If a species can not succeed in adapting to its surroundings it eventually becomes extinct. In mass extinctions, large numbers of species become extinct each year for tens of thousands to millions of years. Each species will have different reasons for becoming extinct; these may include lack of food, climate change, diseases/epidemics, etc.

1. How many mass extinctions have taken place in the past 500 million years? What were two of these species, (besides dinosaurs)?

2. Take two of these species and classify them using today's classifications.

3. Give two ways that humans unintentionally contribute to extinctions.

Current Human Evolution/Natural Selection

Natural selection is the process by which traits become more or less common in a population due to consistent effects upon the survival or reproduction of their bearers. The traits differ due to where the population is from and what their environment was at the start of their ancestors. An example of this that i read about was Charles Darwin's discovery that happened over 150 years ago. His discovery is responsible for transforming dinosaurs into birds. Darwin's natural selection is the process by which nature rewards those individuals better adapted to their environments with survival and reproductive success. His validity of his natural selection have been attacked recently by a small group who argue that it cannot explain all the complexity seen in nature.
The human brain is said to still be evolving. Several experts criticized the finding of the brain still evolving. They said that it was far from clear that new alleles(genes) conferred any cognitive advantage or had spread. Also different populations have different allele evolutions. You can compare this to malaria defenses. The genetic defenses against malaria differ in Mediterranean and African populations. Another example is when two people did study on Microcephalin haplogroup D and ASPM haplogroup D. They found that with the Microcephalin haplogroup D it is virtually universal in the new world but with ASPM haplogroup D variant is most common in Europe and West Africa and less so in East Asia. I think this is because the human brain and other traits differ due to the location of the people and what their environment, climate, or life is like.












http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2009/04/06/recent-selection-in-human-populations/

http://www.livescience.com/health/051102_natural_selection.html

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/evolution/are-we-still-evolving.html

1. How can you survey the human genome for recent signs of natural selection?

2. What major part of our body is stilll evolving?

3. What did the evolutionary geneticist Bruce Lahn report about the evolving brain?

Disruptive selection explains changes in population genetics where traits extreme values are superior to its intermediate values. In this instance, the variance of the trait increases dividing the population into two groups. Another name for this is diversifying selection. An example I read was made about a population of rabbits. There were rabbits with black fur, white fur, or gray fur. If the rabbit had black fur that meant the genotype was BB. If it had white fur the genotype bb and with gray fur the genotype is Bb. If these rabbits were in an area with very dark colored rocks and very white colored stone then the rabbits with black or white fur would easily be able to hide from predators by the same colored rock as their fur. The rabbits with gray fur would stand out against the black and white rocks and be at a higher risk for predators seeing them. Due to the environment the gray rabbit is living it would be disruptively selected because of its fur color.

Questions:
1. What is another example of this type of natural selection?
2. What is a genotype and what does it have to do with the fur color of the rabbit?
3. How does this type of selection differ from the other types?

origins debate

http://ejournal.belhaven.edu/religion_philosophy/deconstructing_origins_debate.htm

1. What did Stephan Gould argue about concerning religion and evolution?
2. What is the supposed probability that evolution could occur?(keyword: random shuffling)
3. For what reason is it that evolutionists believe that intelligent design should not be considered science?(after into)

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-06/uouh-agp060910.php
1. What are CNV's and how are they related to autism?

2. The study found three new genes, SHANK2, SYNGAP1, DLGAP2, what do these genes belong to? And what does identifying these genes do?

http://www.autism-society.org/site/PageServer?pagename=research_envirohealth
3. The research found that children that have autism or are at risk for having autism have what?