User:Annaabecc/sandbox

Wikipedia First Drafts

Article #1: Key Deer - I added text and reference to the first paragraph. - I added text along with a reference to the "behavior" paragraph - I added text (paragraph) and added a reference to the end.

A booby is a seabird in the genus Sula, part of the family Sulidae. Boobies are closely related to the gannets (Morus), which were formerly included in Sula. They reside in the Galapagos Islands and in between northern Peru to southern California.

Behaviour
Boobies hunt fish by diving from a height into the sea and pursuing their prey underwater. Facial air sacs under their skin cushion the impact with the water. Boobies are colonial breeders on islands and coasts. They normally lay one or more chalky-blue eggs on the ground or sometimes in a tree nest. Selective pressures, likely through competition for resource, have shaped the ecomorphology and foraging behaviours of the six species of boobies in the Pacific. One unique behavior boobies exhibit are the dances they display by raising their feet several times, proceeded by raising their heads, pointing their wings towards their tail and blowing a whistle. This is called sky-pointing.

Endangered status
Key deer were hunted as a food supply by native tribes, passing sailors, and early settlers. Hunting them was banned in 1939, but widespread poaching and habitat destruction caused the subspecies to plummet to near-extinction by the 1950s. The National Key Deer Refuge, a federally administered National Wildlife Refuge operated by the Wildlife Service, was established in 1957.

Recent population estimates put the population between 700 and 800, putting it on the list of endangered species. Road kills from drivers on US 1, which traverses the deer's small range, are also a major threat, averaging between 125 and 150 kills per year, 70% of the annual mortality.

A couple of threats that key deer have been through in today's day and age have been habitat fragmentation, destruction and degradation as well as dilemmas generated by people. Habitats have now been deprived of its natural resources and vegetation due to urbanization. Other issues such as the continuous feeding from people results in the deer depending on humans as their source to receive food. In addition, fences have become a hindrance to the normal way of migration that the deer would normally take.

However, the population has made an encouraging rise since 1955, when population estimates ranged as low as 25, and appears to have stabilized in recent years. Still, recent human encroachment into the fragile habitat and the deer's relatively low rate of reproduction point to an uncertain future for the subspecies. In August 2019 the USFWS recommended that the Key deer be "delisted due to recovery".

Article #2: Booby - I combined two paragraphs into one because they both were about the same topic.

Six of the ten extant Sulidae species called boobies are in the genus Sula, while the three gannet species are usually placed in the genus Morus. Abbott's booby was formerly included in Sula but is now placed in a monotypic genus Papasula, which represents an ancient lineage perhaps closer to Morus. Some authorities consider that all ten species should be considered congeneric in Sula. However, they are readily distinguished by means of osteology. The distinct lineages of gannets and boobies are known to have existed in such form, since at least the Middle Miocene, c.15mya.

- I added a paragraph and header - I added a link to the word "blue-footed"to another wikipedia page defining it

Endangered Status
The resources and survival rates in regards to specifically blue-footed boobies have gone down in Galápagos. So far that in the past 20 years, more than 50% of boobies have diminished. Their source of food, sardines have been exceedingly in decline which has caused a rippling effect in boobies. Researchers are trying to get to the bottom of where the sardines have disappeared to. Whether they are being over fished, result of climate change or just migrating somewhere else? This has caused a negative response in boobies where they are electing not to breed, bringing about a scarcity in the offspring produced.

Article #3: Inbreeding in fish - I added headers to these paragraphs to section off specific topics

Exposure chemical environmental agent
Exposure of zebrafish to a chemical environmental agent, analogous to that caused by anthropogenic pollution, amplified the effects of inbreeding on key reproductive traits. Embryo viability was significantly reduced in inbred exposed fish and there was a tendency for inbred males to sire fewer offspring.

Effects
The effect of inbreeding on reproductive behavior was studied in the poeciliid fish Heterandria formosa. One generation of full-sib mating was found to decrease reproductive performance and likely reproductive success of male progeny. Other traits that displayed inbreeding depression were offspring viability and maturation time of both males and females.

Behaviors
The behaviors of juvenile Coho salmon with either low or medium inbreeding were compared in paired contests. Fish with low inbreeding showed almost twice the aggressive pursuit in defending territory than fish with medium inbreeding, and furthermore had a higher specific growth rate. A significant effect of inbreeding depression on juvenile survival was also found, but only in high-density competitive environments, suggesting that intra-specific competition can magnify the deleterious effects of inbreeding.

- I added text to this paragraph along with a reference. - I added a link to the word "paternity" to another wikipedia page defining it

Inbreeding Avoidance Mechanisms
Inbreeding ordinarily has negative fitness consequences (inbreeding depression), and as a result species have evolved mechanisms to avoid inbreeding. Numerous inbreeding avoidance mechanisms operating prior to mating have been described. However, inbreeding avoidance mechanisms that operate subsequent to copulation are less well known. In guppies, a post-copulatory mechanism of inbreeding avoidance occurs based on competition between sperm of rival males for achieving fertilization. In competitions between sperm from an unrelated male and from a full sibling male, a significant bias in paternity towards the unrelated male was observed. It is a theory that females avoid inbreeding more than males due to the fact that when they mate with a sibling, they obtain 50% less sperm in their ovarian cavities in comparison to mating with a non sibling.

- I added text to this paragraph.

Inbreeding Depression
Inbreeding depression is considered to be due largely to the expression of homozygous deleterious recessive mutations. This is the consequence of mating between related parents, causing a decrease in fitness in the offspring. Outcrossing between unrelated individuals results in the beneficial masking of deleterious recessive mutations in progeny.

The mangrove rivulus Kryptolebias marmoratus produces eggs and sperm by meiosis and routinely reproduces by self-fertilization. Each individual hermaphrodite normally fertilizes itself when an egg and sperm that it has produced by an internal organ unite inside the fish's body. In nature, this mode of reproduction can yield highly homozygous lines composed of individuals so genetically uniform as to be, in effect, identical to one another. The capacity for selfing in these fishes has apparently persisted for at least several hundred thousand years.

Fertilization Assurance
Although inbreeding, especially in the extreme form of self-fertilization, is ordinarily regarded as detrimental because it leads to expression of deleterious recessive alleles, self-fertilization does provide the benefit of “fertilization assurance” (reproductive assurance) at each generation.