Thursday, June 12, 2014

THE QUESTION: The oceans harbor a wide variety of living organisms, each exhibiting adaptations for survival in their particular marine niches.  First analyze the relationship between structure and function in the living organisms studied this semester.   Then compare and contrast representative members of the major marine animal phyla in terms of structure, adaptation, lifestyle, and evolutionary history.









Here is a picture of a food web.  Every Organism in the web belongs in its own separate niche then the others.  even though they are all separate they are also all connected to one other.  organisms from the very bottom such as bacteria can be connected to an organism like a whale or shark. 


PLANKTON: one of the smallest organisms in the marine web.  plankton can not swim against the current so they literally " go with the flow" These organisms include drifting animals,  protists, archaea, algae, or bacteria  that inhabit the pelagic zone of oceans, seas or bodies of fresh water; that is, plankton are defined by their ecological zone rather than phylogentic or taxonomic  classification.





Plankton are primarily divided into trophic levels:
  • Phytoplankton autotrophic , prokaryotic  or ekaryotic algae that live near the water surface where there is sufficient light to support photosynthesis.
  • Zooplankton small protozoans that feed on other plankton
  • Bacterioplankton,bacteria and archaea, which play an important role in reminerlising organic material down the water column
This scheme divides the plankton community into broad producer, consumer and recycler groups.












FISH: are members of the paraphyletic group which is a group of organisms who bare gills and lack limbs with digits.  are organisms higher up the plankton  on the marine food web. they play a major role in all organisms life such as other marine life and humans! as fish can feed off plankton we feed off of fish. 





 




After fish the organisms on the scale keep getting bigger and bigger. 
things like birds or seals, sharks and whales.  these predators are more consumers where they eat other organisms in the food web. organisms at the top are whales, sharks etc.



                


IN CONCLUSION:  all organisms in the marine food web are connected to each other.  organisms eat each other which helps then survive.  if one organism was to disappear and become extinct the whole food web would suffer and possibly destroy the whole ocean planet.  humans would also suffer for marine life plays a huge role in how we survive.  we catch and use marine organisms as food  everyday and are a huge source of food and income.  the marine food web is very important because without it we would suffer.  all the organisms work together to create a huge web of resources for humans. by working together they crea





Wednesday, June 4, 2014

Hot Turtles

1) Climate Change
Our earth has warming.  over the past century our Earths temperature has risen 1.4 degrees F. and is still warming up this very moment.  When the climate of the Earth changes everything is affected.  everything living on this earth has adapted to the earth and its original form.  when climates change humans and other organisms aren't prepared to live in those conditions which causes them to have serious problems.  People are the main reason for climate change.  Humans can produce bad carbons and gases that get traped in the earth and make a blanket which blocks out what we need.  this affects us all.


2) Amazon Turtles
When turtles lay their eggs the temperature of the sand determines the whether the turtle will be male or female.  when the sand is hotter the baby turtle will be female and if its a colder temperature the baby turtles will be male.  the concern that turtles face when dealing with temperature is if the climate changes and increase there could be a risk of all the turtles becoming female which means there would be no possible way to pro create.  which would adventully mean the turtle would die off. turtle play a major role in the world turtles eat plants and berries and the when they poop the seeds from the plants land and re plant.


3) what can we do
Well we know turtles lay their eggs on the sand and the temperature determine the gender of the new turtle.  if we are worried all the turtles will be born female, we should dig up some of the eggs and relocate them to a much cooler area or an incubater that keeps the eggs cooler.