Male cones on a white pine. Taunton, MA.

For the first time, scientists observe plants competing with animals for food.

scienceisbeauty:

Adult hermaphrodite of Caenorhabditis elegans

Source

As promised in class today, here is a link to last year’s Exam 2. I noticed that this exam doesn’t contain anything on animals on it. That means there’s less pressure to get to the animals before our day off next Friday. As long as we get through the fungi, we should be all set for Exam 2 on April 12.

The link above will take you to the prelab reading for this week’s lab on plants. After you have read the  article, log into Mastering Biology and complete the prelab assignment called Plants and Their Structure. This assignment will close at 8:00 a.m. Thursday (when our lab begins).

An international panel of experts has strongly endorsed evidence that a space impact was behind the mass extinction event that killed off the dinosaurs. (Link from BBC)

The link above will take you to the prelab reading for this week’s lab on microbial community interactions. After you have read the short article, answer the questions on the worksheet provided in class on Monday. (You can find copies of both the reading and the worksheet in the Documents link on the right.)