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Free Journal When we went back to the stream, the plants on the side of the park had again grown exponentially. They had grown in both quantity and size, while the plants on the side across from Manoa Park looked as if they hadn't grown one bit. Since it had rained earlier, the ground was a little bit muddier, and as we walked down the stream I noticed that the plants took up more land for growth and it was a little hard to see through some parts if there was a plant in the way. The shadows of the plants were a lot higher, which was a clear sign that the plants had grown. After seeing all of this, I ended up at the conclusion that the plants on the side of the park grew faster because they were more open to the rain and those plants could absorb more sunlight during the sunrise period and thus would be able to perform photosynthesis more often. We also tested the current of the water, and this time the current averaged a rate of 25 feet a minute, which was faster than the previous average we took by about half a minute. There may have been flaws in our previous experiment because the tennis ball might have skidded across the wall, which would've slowed it down, but our group was sure that the current of the stream was faster than its current a week ago. When I looked out into the stream, I did not see any plants growing close to the edges of the stream where there was land, and this was where there was a slower current. Although there weren't that many plants growing in the stream, most of the plants that did grow in the stream could be found in the middle or the faster flowing part of the stream. This led me to the conclusion that the plants that grew in the stream could only be found in the middle because the water is always moving, which allows plants to absorb the water, while the plants that might have grown in the areas of the stream with a slower current died out because they needed to live in the part of the stream with a fast current. Lastly, when we were on each side of the stream, we noticed that we saw most of the bottom feeders swimming in the areas with a slower current. Here, the rocks didn't move with the stream as much and it would be much easier for bottom feeders to eat the algae growing on rocks without having to chase them. We also saw a dead bottom feeder which laid with its sucker mouth not facing down toward the ground, but facing the sky instead. Our group believed that this bottom feeder failed to find algae on rocks or it went into the middle of the stream, and the current got the better of the fish. Once I took note of all this, I came to the conclusion that the bottom feeders live on the sides of the stream because their niche is a part of a body of water with a slow current, in which they can consume algae growing on rocks without being caught by the current. These observations and inferences led me to create these three hypotheses. 1. If plants of the same species were to be observed on different sides of the stream, then the plant growing on the side of Manoa Park would grow more because they have more access to sunlight through the course of the day. 2. If two seeds coming from the same plant were to be placed on opposite sides of the stream and watered once a week (not including rain), then the seed growing on the side across from Manoa Park would grow more because there would be more open land, giving it more access to sunlight than on the other side, where most plants take up space, preventing a small plant from getting the sunlight it would need to grow. 3. If a separate enclosure were to be created by rocks and several bottom feeders were placed in the enclosure, then those fish would be able to live because the rocks would slow down the current and the bottom feeders would be able to use those rocks to eat algae off of them.

Assigned Journal Manoa Stream Food Web

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