Readings: Chapters 9-10 from “Endless Forms Most Beautiful”
With ideas you encounter in the reading, develop three discussion questions that integrate, explore, and extend what we have learned so far in the course about the mechanisms and principles of development. Access the link to the discussion question submission on the course schedule. If they are well thought out and complete they will earn you part of your credit for the homework assignment that day. We will select a couple of these to discuss in class (without associating names with who submitted them).
Reading Questions--bring your answers to these questions, as you will be responsible for answering one of them in class. You will not turn these answers in.
1. Are MC1R and MYH16 developmental toolkit proteins? Explain your reasoning.
2. Can evolution, which is at its root caused by random mutations in DNA, repeat itself? Support your answer with an example.
3. What data point to a role for modified MC1R function in rock pocket mice that have dark coat color? How convincing is this evidence to you? Why?
4. How could mutations in a switch regulating the transcription of a melanin producing enzyme lead to the formation of a dark spot in a fly wing? What would the mutation do? What else would need to be present in the fly wing in your model?
5. What is fitness and how does it impact allele frequency in a population? Can mutations in gene coding sequences be considered alleles? How about mutations in regulatory switches?
6. Does the lack of a coat color pattern in nature (for example all white) mean that there is not a developmental process to generate it?
7. What type of genetic variation likely leads to difference in form between humans and chimpanzees? What type of genetic variation likely leads to differences in form between you and your siblings or between you and your biological parents.
8. The developmental tool kit represents possibility. What leads to the realization of this possibility?