September 14- Genetics

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One of my understandings that changed with the class was about common descent. In my mind, things had to look similar in order to be related- because that just makes sense, right? I look like my mom and my dad and my grandparents.... But then, once I heard about the aphids in the middle of fungus, I had to change my way of thinking. You have to think of common descent more in a genetic way than just phenotypic.

And in the same category was my difficulty with the phylogentic tree as a whole. How to create them from scratch and how to tell the difference between monophyletic and paraphyletic.

I have learned a lot throughout this course. I had Dr. Wiggins for genetics last semester, right before our semester got cut short. So, some of this stuff does seem a little bit like a review. But at the same time, I was a bit foggy on some of these subjects. So I am actually glad we are touching base with some of it again. 

The phylogenetic trees, I struggled with it last semester and I struggled with it in animal biology, and I continued that cycle up to this semester. But luckily, Dr. Wiggins took the extra time to go into more detail and help me understand where I couldn't before. I will always confused on Paraphyletic and how to tell if it was paraphyletic or just monophyletic. Now, I can say I know much better. I came to this ah-ha moment during one of our team meetings.

I'm a little iffy on the actual difference between bottleneck and founders effect. They both happen because of a split in population and both result in decreased variation? Soo...?

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