Blog Post 9

1. The anatomy that I observed which seems to exhibit the most variation is the plants length. I observed their texture, color, size, and shape, but what seemed generally seemed to have the most variation appeared to be its size. By measuring each plant in centimeters you may discover that sizes may vary in many different numbers. The stem in particular seemed to have the most variation because of the differences between each plant's length. I measured the stems of about six plants and discovered that some plants would have a stem with the length of 18cm, and another with 24cm. I did not discover any plant with the same number of centimeters, however I did find that many of the plants seemed to be very similar in the width of its leaves and stems. The anatomy that seems to contain the greatest range of variation seems to be the leaves. The leaves not only contain different color but the number of leaves on the plant show a great variation. In one plant I found about nine leaves and in others I had discovered four, this could be due do predators.

2. I believe the main reason for the wide variety of Brassica plants was that natural selection occurs causing the plants with the most useful traits to survive. These traits get passed down in the form of genes once the plants mate with the help of selective breeding from the gardner. Those plants survive and are able to pass down there traits to their offspring. Mutations may also occur between plants that have survived causing and even larger variety to occur. Although they most likely come from the same common ancestor there is such a large variety because survival of the fittest getting rid of those plants with weaker traits.

3. I found the color of the leaves to be extremely similar. This is because they seem to receive the same amount of water, sunlight, and soil. They all appeared to be a very identical shade of yellow. I also observed that the size of the petals where quite similar, about 2 to 3 centimeters in length. This along with receiving the same amount of nutrients, is due to having a common ancestor. Plants that survive pass of their genes with contain the alleles for yellow colored plants is given to the offspring and this cycle continues until the entire family gets wiped out.

4. My guess is that plant breeders would have to breed two plants which are similar in terms of species but contain different genes because they do not come from the same common ancestor, this makes it much more likely for their offspring to contain different colored leaves along with a difference in size and shape. They would want to find plants with different colors and shapes for this to work, this would cause more variation between plants and a greater chance of possibly a hybrid of the two plants.