Lyndon, Annie, Sebastian Bio 111's Boletim

While doing my iNaturalist observations during my first BIOL 111 lab on Tuesday September 14th, I took particular interest and curiosity in a plant that had clusters of small fuzzy white flower heads, and upon further inspection, and with the use of iNaturalist, I identified this plant as a white snakeroot. White Snakeroot, or Ageratina Altissima, is a species of perennial herb in the family Asteraceae. In terms of White Snakeroot's Phylogeny placement, using one zoom, I found that this plant traces back to the following order of species groups (from broadest to most specific: Eukaryotes, plants, Green plants, Land plants, Vascular plants, Seed plants, Flowering plants, Eudicots, Daisy family, and finally the Snakeroot group. For the adaptation that every observation in our group had in common I decided to focus on the dropping of leaves during the winter season of the year. Deciduous plants handle the lack of water that they receive during the winter months, they shed their leaves in order to to keep the leaves from wasting water through transpiration. For the White Snakeroot plant, the specific adaptation I noticed was the flower heads that it possessed. This serves as an adaptation to increase the reproductive efficiency of this plant, by drawing attention to itself for insects to come to the plant and distribute its pollen when they move on to the next plant.

1. Observation: Trillium Grandiflorum (Large White Trillium). Eukaryote -> Plant -> Vascular Plant -> Liliopsida -> Liliales -> Melanthiaceae -> Birthroots/Trillium -> T. Grandiflorum. This is the phylogenetic makeup of the Large White Trillium, in decreasing taxonomic order from Domain to Species.
2. In our group, all the identified organisms are plants. One common adaptation between all species is the development/use of chlorophyll as a phytochemical in cell energy production. This chemical has allowed plants to become autotrophs, allowing for self-sustenance and energy conservation (being autotrophic) in the battle between predators.
3. Green Cheese Polypore (S. name: Niveoporofomes spraguei) has evolved over time to be a decomposer, meaning it feeds on non-living organic matter that is essentially "rotting". In the case of the green cheese polypore, it has the ability to excrete exoenzymes, which allow for rot to occur specifically on trees, enabling spore reproduction to occur easier (not picky in environment) and more effectively (organic matter always dies, which always provides nutrients to the fungus).