Allelic Frequencies

Ok, Question of the Day:
1. (5 pts.) Population Genetics Based Upon Phenotypes. Cyanogenesis in white clover, Trifolium repens, is controlled by two unlinked loci. One locus controls synthesis of a cyanogenic substrate while a second locus codes for synthesis of the enzyme that releases the cyanide radical from the substrate. Cyanogenic plants rapidly release cyanide when they are crushed. Cyanogenic plants can be identified by crushing their leafs in the presence of dinitrotoluene (I nitro away from TNT!) which turns red in the presence of free cyanide. The cyanogenesis phenotype is polymorphic in white clover populations throughout the world. Alleles at the first gene that encodes the cyanogenic substrate are usually fixed. Cyanogenic alleles are incompletely dominant to acyanogenic alleles at the second gene. Acyanogenic plants are assumed to be homozygous recessive. Numerous studies have shown that cyanogenic plants are eaten (by a variety of things) less often than acyanogenic plants. On the other hand, cyanogenic plants don't recover well from being trampled or crushed and generally show less vegetative growth and lower fecundity. The fitness of the genotype is thus dependent on the environment. You observe the following frequency of cyanogenic phenotypes in three populations. Assume the existence of two alleles at the second gene that encodes the enzyme that releases the cyanide radical.

Population 1 Population 2 Population 3
Cyanogenic

+ 0.2 0.5 0.95

- 0.8 0.5 0.05

a) Calculate the frequency of the cyanogenic allele in each population.

b) In two or three sentences provide a hypothesis to explain the maintenance of alleles at these frequencies in these populations. How would you test this hypothesis? (Hint: What selective forces might be operating in each of these populations?)


If anyone can tell me whether or not the part about incomplete dominance of the cyanogenic allele to the acyanogenic allele makes any difference at all, I will buy you a candy bar!!!! If you could also give me a better nudge in the right direction for question "b" that would be much appreciated and warrant an even better ICE CREAM CONE!!!

Ok, now that you all are on that...

It's Monday again, and I'm struggling with my homework. Also, unless my friend Emily comes to pick me up, I'm stranded on campus until 7:15, at which point we go over to the student center for an officer meeting, and then a team meeting at 8pm, meaning I will not get home until around 9pm. At which point I will have been on campus for a solid 12 hrs. Whoa.
Today was payday!!! I wasn't able to save anything this month, and probably won't be able to for the next two months, mostly because I have to make payments to CSU for my fees. I won't complain b/c certain people like to point out how cheap in-state tuition is vs out of state....but it's still a lot of money for me :)
Better get back to it, I have a bunch of homework still, and a tiny bit more lab stuff to finish up today if I can just buckle down.
Thanks for reading! Hope you all had a great Monday!

-Megan

ps. I forgot to mention trail work weekend #2! It went well, no one broke any bones...

FRIDAY!!!!

I'm so glad it's Friday!!!!!!!! This week has been possibly the longest of my life, and I can't imagine how Caley feels. Poor guy has been at my beck and call all week, and he's been amazing about it, but I still feel bad.
This weekend should be full of fun! Tonight is Tirrels "going away" party :( I'm super sad!! I'll miss her calming influence and general Tirrely awesomeness. We have, however, inherited her lovely sister Marlena, so perhaps she will be a good replacement:)
Saturday morning we are volunteering for the Rist Canyon Road race, starting at 6:45am!!! We get free lunch though, so it should be worth it. Saturday evening it's back up to Beaver Meadows for some more "trail work" aka sitting around relaxing for me:) I have a feeling though, that the weekend is going to fly by, and before we know it, it'll be back to the grind. Man I can't wait to be done with school!
Short post today, lot's to do!
-Megan

Broken Ankle

So, I broke my ankle. Not doing anything spectacular, it was a very slow motion fall on the mtn bike. My foot didn't clip out, and my body acted as a nice lever to snap the tip off of my fibula. A picture for your enjoyment:



Other than that, school has started, my Population Genetics class is going to be super tough, a lot of statistics and convoluted math. Hopefully I can stay on top of it seeing as my adviser is my teacher...I'm also taking Spanish again which should be fun! The teacher is really enthusiastic and seems nice. I'm taking the first year review class, it's definitely the right level for me to be in. Hopefully they won't get me into trouble for not taking the placement test and just signing up for it :)
Research is going well, I'm about ready to take the next step in both of the projects I'm working on. I think I'm going to hatch some eggs tomorrow to start my first cross between my mosquitoes and the Mexican mosquitoes. Cross your fingers that they all hatch well!!! I collected the eggs from my mosquitoes about 2-3 months ago which is the very end of their viability. Hopefully I won't lose any...another thing to keep me up at night.
I tried Vicodin (sp?) for the first time last night. It was awesome! It put me right to sleep, I didn't have any nausea and my foot felt great! I told Caley, under no circumstances is he allowed to let me get addicted to it:)
Well, off to class, hope you all are having a nice week!
-Megan

Summer is Gone :(

Wow, I just realized it's been over a month since I last posted anything! How could I let that happen? :)

I am a mixed bag of feelings about the coming school year. While I'm pretty excited about getting back into the routine of school and going on a lot of fun biking trips this fall, I'm also reminded of how much I have to accomplish between now and the end of the school year! So much remains to be done on my research project, and of course I find every little thing to stress about...every nit-picky little detail that could go wrong, and probably will...At least I have a pretty clear idea about what has to be done to finish the project. Then comes the thesis writing and defending! I take comfort that many people have gone before me and survived:)

The past month has been full of fun adventures! A crazy trip to see the sister and friends and family in Durango:


Fun riding bikes, Emily made it to the top of Rist Canyon for the first time!!



Also, we went to Nantucket! How could I almost forget??! Favorite pic of the week:



Quite a bit of work, although I don't have any fun pictures for that....

Caley and I marked our 2nd year of togetherness with some epic trail work on the reservoir loop and then some fun downtown at New West Fest. We can't decide whether the past two years have gone really fast or really slow...still not sure:)

I should head to bed, we're getting up early to ride some mtn bikes! I'm trying to get some good riding in the next few weeks before racing starts. Somehow the summer went without me riding nearly as much as I would have liked. I guess I'll be forced to this fall with races every weekend, racing into shape is my favorite thing to do anyway...:)

I'll make a more concerted effort to keep you updated this fall!

-Megan

Catch Up with Pictures!!!

Hey All,
I finally got the picture thingy and now have hundreds of pictures to sort through from the past 4 months.

I'll pick one or two from every adventure, facebook will have the rest:)

Everyone hangin' at my house for the FLC road race


Group ride to our sponsor shop right before nationals, we stopped at the raptor rescue


At the awards ceremony after Nationals, I already forget what place we got as a team...


An awesome mtn bike ride with Caley


Breakfast at Verns with our friends Emily and Brendan, Caley is a little full :)


Tirrels graduation party, I will miss her a lot!!


Post Iron Horse Picnic in Silverton!!!


At the beach on Balboa Island after my first successful scientific conference


The first of Caley's birthday celebrations; at the Trailhead with good friends


Hangin' out in the park playing frisbee


Fourth of July! Almost all of the cousins were there


Jesse's birthday and Sunday breakfast all in one!


Out to a fancy dinner with Caley courtesy of his Aunt Linda!



Lake weekend with Emily!


That brings up pretty much up to date, I still have to upload pics from last night's Wine and Cheese Extravaganza party. (aka WACE party, pronounced "wacky")

This summer has been about the best ever, and we are going to Nantucket tomorrow, so it's about to get even better!!!!
I'll keep you all posted:)

-Megan

Goings On!

Hello! I realized today that I haven't written in awhile, and there has been so much going on I'm sure I'll forget most of it:) Let me try for a quick recap:
- Got my primers to function at work!! Whoo hoo!
- Caley turned 21 and had approximately three parties/get-togethers. First we went to the Trail Head for his actually birthday (buy one get one free burgers and $2 beers!) Thursday we had people over for dinner, small gathering of good friends that was totally impromptu. Friday was the big party with tons of food, lots of good beer, lots of good friends (and most of my family who were in town for the 4th). We went downtown after for the art walk and some bar hopping.
- Saturday was spent watching the Tour, sleeping, home improvements and a big bbq at my Uncles house with the fam. Fireworks followed, and a pretty mellow evening because the rain upset our campfire plans at another friends house.
- Today we had breakfast with the fam again, Cousin Jesse's birthday!! He's 24 today! Wow, so old :) I've been sleeping pretty much all day, tuckered out from all of our festivities, I can't believe how many times we've had people over to the house the past week!

For your viewing pleasure, a video tour of the new apartment because I've finally gotten it into a bit of shape! :)


I sincerely hope this doesn't make you motion sick :)

In anticipation of a grilled dinner!

Caley and I have been grilling a lot! His favorite of course is sausage from Sunflower or our new found Beaver Market:) Tonight will be an experiment! Grilled portabella mushroom caps and maybe some grilled red pepper? From looking up a bunch of general recipes, this is how I imagine I will grill them:

4 portabella mushroom caps with stems removed and wiped with damp towel
4 cloves of garlic
some olive oil
chopped shallots?
some balsamic vinegar

Marinate mushroom caps for ~20minutes in mixture of oil, vinegar, chopped garlic and shallots

Grill caps 3-4 minutes each side!

Serve with grilled peppers on buns, or just eating them like steak! Whoo, very excited! Most recipes I've looked up are a variation on the theme of olive oil, some simple spices, and maybe some vinegar, but since I'm a huge fan, we're doing the vinegar for sure:)

I'm also going to try grilling some summer squash later this week, and if the salmon is on sale at Sunflower...maybe that too! Grilled salmon is just about my favorite ever!

Last night we had a delicious shrimp curry a la master curry chef Caley :) It was called peppercorn shrimp in the book, but we substituted normal pepper (didn't have peppercorns) and substituted cumin seeds for mustard seeds cause we didn't have any of those either, but it was soooo delicious! I love the taste of curries with coconut milk in them, a lot more mellow and sweet than some of the non coconut milk ones we've tried. We are big curry fans :) Not sure if I mentioned the smoky eggplant curry I made a couple of weeks ago, but WOW is all I can say!! Definitely going to make that one again!

I wish Caitlin would blog some more and put up some awesome recipes that she's been making...:P
-Megan