Unit 4 Fossil Blast Lab

Five morphological observations were made from looking at the unknown fossil specimen. See the list of the observations that were made. Figure 4 Fossil Cladogram was then redrawn into the lab journal and a prediction was made on the fossil placement on the cladogram based on the observations. Next, an explanation of the reasons for the prediction was then recorded in the lab notebook. The four gene file were then downloaded onto the computer by going to the website listed below. Since the gene files will not open on the computer, a folder that was titled, “BLAST Lab” was created to put the files in. Once the files have been downloaded and stored in a folder, the next step was to go to the BLAST home page. Selecting the link, “Saved Strategies” …show more content…
No changes or alterations were not allowed to be made once the page that contains the parameter appeared. When that page appeared, BLAST button (located at the bottom of the page) was then selected. Two sections appeared on the page. The first section is a graphic display of the matching sequence, which will not be needed in this portion of the lab. The second part of the page, “Sequences producing significant alignments” showed a list of genes. The first link on the list for was used for all of the four genes to find the identity of the gene because it was the most similar. When clicking on a particular species that was listed, a full report of the specie appeared on the page. The information on the report was then used to fill out the BLAST Data card for each gene files. The genus and specie was the first two words in the name, and the common name was found by googling the genus and specie name. The protein produce by the sequence was found by looking at the third word of the link. By clicking on the Distance Tree Results link at the top of the page, it showed a cladogram for that particular species. The option, “Slanted” was chosen to aid in the process of drawing a cladogram for the distance tree