Exploring Inheritance in an Alien Species
Scenario:
You are an astrobiologist performing research on an alien planet 4.2 million
light years away in a remote part of the Andromeda Galaxy. You spend 25 years
carefully and meticulously documenting the primary life force on this planet, a
strange species you decided to name Davieses. After all your time on the
planet, you are just about finished with your groundbreaking journal article. The
day before you are about to beam your findings back home to Earth, you hit
your head on your computer and accidentally erase all of your data. Realizing
that you just wasted a $3,000,000,000,000 investment, you decide to do what no
professional scientist would ever doyou falsify your data. After all, nobody on
Earth would know if youre lying, and you need to quickly make something up.
Thinking back to your 10th grade biology course, you realize that Davieses
seemed to follow inheritance patterns similar to those on Earth. Some traits
followed the rules of dominance and recessiveness, whereas others
exhibited incomplete dominance, codominance, polygenetics, and some
were under the influence of certain environmental factors. As it turns out,
you hit your head harder than you thought and cant remember exactly what
Davieses look like, but you quickly jot down some traits that seem plausible,
including: wings, scales, feathers, hair, antennas, teeth/beaks, number of
fingers/toes/arms/legs, color, height, and body shape.
Directions:
Complete the following report outline to send back to Earth. Feel free to
include any characteristics you want (you can use the ones above to guide your
report). Keep in mind specific traits that people on Earth would want to know
in order to get the clearest possible image of the Daviesies species (i.e., what
makes a Davies a Davies?).
On The Daviesies. A 25 year study by: _____________________
Trait 1: Dominance and Recessiveness (simple Mendelian inheritance).
>> What is the overall trait you are describing? ________________________________________
>> Dominant phenotype: _________________________________________________________
>> Recessive phenotype: _________________________________________________________
>> Why does this trait follow the rules of dominance and recessiveness?:
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
>>Punnett square showing inheritance and drawing of traits:
Trait 2: Incomplete dominance.
>> What is the overall trait you are describing? ________________________________________
>> Phenotype 1: ________________________________________________________________
>> Phenotype 2: ________________________________________________________________
>> Phenotype 3: ________________________________________________________________
>> Why does this trait follow the rules of incomplete dominance?:
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
>>Punnett square showing inheritance and drawing of traits:
Trait 3: Codominance.
>> What is the overall trait you are describing? ________________________________________
>> Phenotype 1: ________________________________________________________________
>> Phenotype 2: ________________________________________________________________
>> Phenotype 3: ________________________________________________________________
>> Why does this trait follow the rules of codominance:
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
>>Punnett square showing inheritance and drawing of traits:
Trait 4: A Polygenetic Trait.
>> What is the overall trait you are describing? ________________________________________
>> Phenotype 1: ________________________________________________________________
>> Phenotype 2: ________________________________________________________________
>> Phenotype 3: ________________________________________________________________
>> Phenotype 4: ________________________________________________________________
>> Why does this trait follow the rules of polygenetics?:
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
>>Drawing of the traits:
Trait 5: A trait influenced by environmental factors.
>> What is the overall trait you are describing? ________________________________________
>> Phenotype 1: ________________________________________________________________
>> Phenotype 2: ________________________________________________________________
>> Phenotype 3: ________________________________________________________________
>> How is this trait influenced by environmental factors:
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
>>A drawing of the traits:
A sample Davies:
>>Name: _____________________________________________________________________
>> Notable and/or unusual characteristics: ___________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
>> Additional personal information: ________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
Drawing:
