One of a Kind: The Wonders of Biodiversity

Our group experimented with collards. They are almost two feet tall and have little holes because of pests like caterpillars.The leaves are really big in size, like a big piece of spinach expect thicker. The leaves take up about 80% of the white stems. It is pretty much a plant that is related to and sort of looks like cabbage.

It is not really easy to see what the parent plant was like, but from phenotypes we can determine some information about the parent plant. I can tell that the parent plants had large leaves it was a recessive trait that appeared twice from both parents. The parent plants were probably average plants because they seem to look the same as most collards I have seen. To predict the collards offspring you would have to know the characteristics of the plants that will be bred together. Punnett Squares are used to compare the parents’ traits to see the different possible traits for the offspring. For the baby plants to acquire these traits, they would have to obtain their parents’ sex cells. In meiosis, the sex cells exchange chromosomes through random assortment. This is exactly how these plants and their descendants will pass traits to their offspring. The offspring could look exactly or partially like their parents because of random assortment (they randomly exchange parts of themselves [chromosomes]). The collards are in the same species of plants, but they look different because of the numerous allele combinations and how they develop differently. The collards are in the Acepahala group in the brassica oleracea species because they have been categorized by development of the plants. The development depends on genetics and genetics depend on the parents’ sex cell’s genetics and random assortment.

For example, wild cabbage (the ancestral species) and collards are the same species. The reason why there are so many variations between collards and wild cabbage is because of environmental factors and cross breeding. This can cause an infinite number of possibilities. They all came from the same origin, but outer forces and cross breeding is basically why they all look so different. The possibilities are endless, but not always highly probable because of the laws of nature. That’s all for now!

One of a Kind: The Wonders of Biodiversity

The plant we have is of the Brassica olercea species, and is more specifically collards. Our collards are pretty big, with our biggest at almost two feet tall. They have thick green leaves and are very smooth. They also have thick white-ish stalks running through the long and wide leaves. To the average person, it resembles the outer leaves of cabbage.  All of our plants have been unfortunately nibbled on by bugs, and are riddled with holes.

It is difficult to determine anything about the parent plants before these. How am I supposed to know if some traits that our plants have our genetic, or if they are really just reactions to their environment? For example, our plants vary greatly in size. One of our plants is almost two feet tall, while another is a modest 17 inches. I could infer that there was one very large plant and one small as the parent plants, but I don’t have much to put behind that idea. Their sizing differences could just as easily be related to the competitors and their environment. My best guess is that the parent plants looked very similar to our plants, and had very slight variation.

I could predict the traits of my plants’ offspring by using punnett squares if I knew the parent plants’ genes. Punnett squares would basically compare each parent plants dominant and recessive traits and then show the resulting chance of which traits (genotypes)  the offspring would have. The baby plants would acquire these traits from the parents’ sex cells. The parents’ sex cells contain chromosomes that have genetic information. During meiosis, the sex cells duplicate and split, eventually creating more sex cells (gametes) with a “blend” of traits from each parent’s cells. My plant will then pass its genetic information on to its offspring in the same way. It will give its traits and other plants traits to create a new seed.  My plant’s offspring will not look just like it, because its offspring will be a mix of its traits and the other parent plant’s traits. Some of my plant’s traits will be recessive, leading it be not exactly like either of its parent, are its sister plants.

Even though the the plants of Brassica olercea are closely related, many look very different. This due to several reasons. One is that they have grown in different places. The ancestral plant was probably taken to places over the world, which would lead each plant to adapt in its own way to survive in the environment it was in. The ancestral plant was native to western and southern coastal Europe, but is now grown in many different places. Another reason is that early genetic mutations may have caused differences in the original plant, which would then be passed down to all the plants after it. This also shows how all of our plants came from the same species. 

One of a Kind: The Wonders of Biodiversity

The plant my group experimented with were collards, of the species brassica oleracea.  Our plants have grown to incredible size, some being as tall as twenty-two inches tall.  Their leaves are almost as long as their stems, but there are many holes in their leaves, indicating pests that may be using our plants as food.

We can see from the appearances of our biggest plants that their parents were very large, or that perhaps one of their parents was large, and both had recessive genes that created the few huge plants in our garden.  Ways that we could predict our plants’ offspring would be to see the genotypes that two mating plants have, then create a Punnett square to predict the genotypes of their offspring.  The offspring would get these genotype mixes because of the mixing of genes in their sex cells, which happens during meiosis (which differs from mitosis because meiosis purposefully assorts paternal and maternal genes in a random way, instead of an exact copy of genes).  Of course, this means that the baby plants will not look exactly like their parents, although such an occurrence is technically possible.

Even though every single team’s plants are the exact same species, they all look incredibly different.  This is because of the many, many possible alleles for the genes of each plant.  Unlike our genes, whose possible alleles are relatively limited, species like brassica oleracea have so many possible genetic combinations, that the phenotypes of these variations make it appear like the plants aren’t related at all!

The ancestor plant, wild brassica oleraceadoes not look anything like our team’s plants, or like the other teams’ plants, yet they are all related to this plant.  The original plant’s changes may have been due to breeding with plants of the same species that may have had recessive genes that appeared in its offspring.  The two plants’ offspring would have phenotypes that were a mix of their parents’ phenotypes, and through generations, the qualities of the brassica oleracea would become harder to see in its children plants.

One of a Kind: The Wonders of Biodiversity

The plant that we have been experimenting with are the collard greens of the brassica oleracea family. It has a short, dark purple stem with dark green leaves branching off in a few strands. I can easily tell that my plant’s parent had the same colors, and were roughly the same size. With a punnet square, I could predict that the offspring of my plant will have very similar qualities to my plant because there is only one parent. They would acquire these traits when the information is stored in chromosomes inside the gametes. The information is then inside the seed and will show in the offspring. Even though the next generation from my plant will be very similar, it will not carry every characteristic. Because there is no competing parent like with animals, the plants will carry many of the hereditary traits. The cabbage looks so different from other species of brassica oleracea because traits were farther and farther spread apart until all of the species looked different. Short side- chain glucosinolates affect how diverse families of plants are. The brassica oleracea have a high concentration of this causing them to be very diverse. In turn, this is why the b. oleracea differ so much from their ancestors.

Collard Greens

Ornamental Kale 'Glamour Red'