Nana's+Journal

Free Journal #1: At Manoa Stream, there is a lot of plant life as well as animal life. Some animals that I observed today were ducks, small fish, birds, and many insects. There were small flowers, bushes, and trees that were also present in this habitat. There were also lots of rocks of different sizes in the stream. The area of the stream where I was studying at today was close to the bridge and had lots of ducks. I think this will be a very good place to study for the rest of the semester because there seems to be a lot of different organisms and not a lot of human disturbances. This morning, the only people down by the stream were the people in our group. Another reason why I think Manoa Stream is an ideal place to study for the rest of the semester is because there seems to be a lot going on. This is obvious because there are so many organisms, but I feel that I will always have something to observe and take notes on at this Stream. For example, today, I saw lots and lots of ducks, but there were the dark-colored species and the white-colored species. I can observe if there are any differences in their way of living and if one benefits more than the other because of their outward appearance. I also noticed that there were more dark-colored species than the white-colored ones. I wonder if natural selection has occurred and that's why there is a significant difference in those numbers of ducks. Also, there seemed to be lots of water-life as well. There were small fish, and some organisms on the swampy rocks that maybe the ducks and the birds feed off of. I think it will be very interesting to find out as the semester goes on, how these different organisms interact with each other and live in the same habitat, although they are clearly different organisms. I would like to see what these organisms' niches are and if they are actually similar to other organisms that live there. Some abiotic factors that are present at Manoa Stream are the rocks, the always-changing weather (today was very sunny, but all of a sudden it started to rain), and the gusty trade winds. I am also hoping to observe how these abiotic factors at Manoa Stream affects the life of the organisms there.

Assigned Journal #1: One organism that is a part of Manoa Stream are the ducks. They are sometimes in the water, and other times, they are sitting on the side of the stream. As I was observing them, I noticed that they pecked at the water a lot. I think they feed off of the small organisms that live in the water. I think the primary parts of their habitat are the stream, the organisms, including the small fishes, that live in the water, and some of the plants that borders the stream. The small fish that live in the stream are an essential part of the manoa stream habitat. I think the primary parts of their niches are the ducks, the stream itself, the algae that lives on the rocks, and smaller organisms that live in the water. I think ducks are a very important part of the fishes' niche because they have a predator-prey relationship. Without ducks eating the fishes, the fishes will become overpopulated and there will be no balance. I also feel that the algae and the rocks that the algae lives on are important because the algae is the fishes' source of food. Also, without the rocks for the algae to grow on, there will be no algae and therefore there will be no food for the fishes. That also means that there will be no fishes for the ducks to feed on. That is an example of a chain reaction. Another organism that was present at Manoa Stream were insects. There were lots of them on the weeds, trees, and other plants. I think maybe the birds that were present at Manoa Stream feed off of those insects. From what I observed today, I can infer that the insects and the birds have a predator prey relationship just like the fishes and the ducks. In this case, the bird is the predator and the insects are the prey. Throughout the rest of this semester, I hope to find out more about this. Down by the stream, there are rocks and on those rocks, birds often stand on them. I think the birds are an essential part of the habitat at Manoa Stream because they are the predator for the insects. Without those birds, the stream would have too many insects and the insects would become overpopulated. This would throw off the balance of their habitat.

Free Journal #2: In Manoa Stream, there are lots of different kinds of life and organisms, but the aspect that I will be focusing on throughout the rest of this project is the ducks. The other members of our group will be focusing on the rise and fall of the tide, the plant life, and the overall coloring of the stream. There seems to be a lot of dark colored ducks and not so many of the white colored ones. Also, it looks like the majority of the ducks likes to stay in the area under the bridge, while a couple others are situated on the southern side of the bridge. At this point of the project, I do not have a solid answer to back up those questions, but I hope that I will be able to find out more about this throughout the semester. I am not 100 percent sure yet, but I think the number of prey and food sources for the ducks may have an effect on the area in which the ducks are situated. It is possible that there may be more plants, insects, small fishes, and other organisms that the ducks feed on in the area under the bridge. Another detail that I noticed was that when the ducks are not in the stream, they tend to go on the right side of the stream. If you look at the stream from a down-stream point of view, it will be on your right hand side. That side also happens to be the side with more abundant plant life. That also means that there are probably more insects that the ducks can feed on. I think that is why the majority of the ducks go to the right side of the stream. After I went to observe the stream for the second time, I came up with a sticky question that I have been pondering about, but have been having a hard time in answering. That is: Why are there so many dark colored ducks and only a couple of the white-colored ducks? There are a couple of different inferences that I can make, but I think I will need to observe more and have solid evidences. Also, I think I need to do a little bit of backup research so I know how many white ducks and how many dark-colored ducks the stream started off with. Then, I can see if there was an equal amount of each and furthermore, if there was any sign of natural selection. I hope to be able to answer this question by the end of the semester.

Assigned Journal #2: Since my area of focus at Manoa Stream has been decided to be ducks, I decided to start out by having an overall idea of the population of the ducks. I counted the number of all the ducks first, then counted only the dark-colored ducks, and finally the white-colored ducks. Today, there were 33 dark-colored ducks and 1 white-colored ducks. At my last visit 2 weeks ago, there were 31 dark-colored ducks and 2 white-colored ducks. I don’t think natural selection or anything of that sort has happened in a matter of 2 weeks. It is possible that some ducks were just farther down the stream today than 2 weeks ago. The topic of heritable variation brings me back to the different colored ducks. Between now and our third visit to our eco-place, I would like to find out the number of ducks Manoa Stream originally started out with. With that piece of information, I will be able to see if in fact natural selection did occur, and that is the cause of the dark-colored ducks outnumbering the white colored ducks. The answer to this sticky question would be very easy if there were preys hunting for ducks. But, there seems to be no predator/prey relationship with the ducks being the preys, so it is an invalid hypothesis to say that there are more dark-colored ducks because they blend in with the stream water better. I have researched a little about Manoa Stream and tried to look for that piece of information that I need, but I have not found it yet. My goal for the next couple of weeks is to find the original duck population so I can make a more accurate hypothesis. Another thing I observed was that there seemed to be more fish that had a brownish tint than a fish of any other color. From this, I can infer that natural selection had occurred and the fish with the brown tint has an advantage because they are harder to spot than the other fishes therefore was able to reproduce successfully and passed on their characteristics to their offspring, which is an example of natural selection. Another example of heritable variation that I witnessed was the different speeds of the fish in the water. A lot of the fishes were pretty fast, except for a couple of evidently slower fishes. Those are heritable variations and through natural selection, the slower fishes will probably die out because they won't be as successful surviving and creating offspring.

Free Journal #3: The eco-place that I decided to study was Manoa Stream. This morning, I made my third trip there to make observations and look for any apparent changes since I have last visited there. The area of Manoa Stream that I visited was the same location as I observed on my previous visits. That area is the part near the bridge, but not quite under it. The role that I decided to take on after the last visit was the role of taking observations of the ducks. They seemed to me like they were an important part of Manoa Stream. I started off by counting the number of ducks there were in the stream. The numbers came out to be 33 dark colored ducks and 1 white colored duck. This number was the same number as the last visit, so there were no changes in the overall duck population at Manoa Stream. I was unable to find out how many ducks Manoa Stream actually started out with, so I cannot say for sure if any natural selection drove the ducks to have these drastic differences in numbers between the white colored ducks and the dark colored ducks. The observations that I made during my last visit seem to be very similar to ones from this visit. One thing that was different from the last visit was that a lot of the ducks stayed out of the water and near the plants today during my visit. Most seemed to be out of the water and not swimming under the bridge like they were during my 2 previous visits. I think the weather these past couple of days has a very big impact on this. It has been rainy and there seems to have been a lot of moisture in the air. I know that insects, especially mosquitoes love moisture and rain, so I think the ducks stayed out of the water for that reason. It must be easier to catch those insects out of the water because they would be around the plants. Here are my hypotheses: If the atmosphere is moist or rainy, then the ducks will stay out of the water and near the plants because there are many mosquitoes and other insects in those areas. If the water level is lower, then there will be more ducks in the stream because the fish inside the stream will be easier to catch.If the flow of the current is faster, then the ducks will stay out of the water because it will be hard to catch fish in the stream.

Assigned Journal #3

Free Journal #4: At my Eco-place, Manoa Stream, my focus is to observe the ducks very closely and perform an experiment using those ducks. This morning, when I made my trip down to the usual spot at Manoa Stream, the part by the bridge and the baseball field, the first thing I did was to count the number of ducks once again. I got a number of 33 dark colored ducks and 1 white colored duck. That number is the same as it was 2 weeks ago, so there were no changes in the overall duck population. Between the first and the second visits, there seemed to be a different number of ducks, but I infer that the reason for that is because I went at a slightly later time in the morning than usual. The ducks may have been in another part of the stream, and just not apparent in the area that I visited at that time period. Also, today is not as muggy and humid as it was during my third visit. Besides the humidity, everything else seems to be pretty much the same as usual. The hypothesis that I came up with 2 weeks ago was this: If the atmosphere is moist and humid, then the ducks will stay out of the water and near the plants because there are many mosquitoes and other insects in those areas. Procedures: 1. Check humidity on the weather channel and go to Manoa Stream on a day with high humidity 2. Once at Manoa Stream, go right by the bridge and count the number of ducks that are in the stream and by the plants by the border of the stream 3. Check humidity on the weather channel and go to Manoa Stream on a day with low humidity 4. Repeat step 2 5. Compare data Data of Humidity and the Number of Ducks in the Stream From the data above, I can conclude that the number of ducks in the stream is affected by the humidity. It also proves that if the humidity is higher, the number of ducks in the stream will be lower and if the humidity is lower, then the number of ducks in the stream will be higher. I infer that this is so because if it is humid, there will be a lot of insects such as mosquitoes that will be flying around the plants, so there will be more food than in the water.
 * Days || Humidity || Number of Ducks ||
 * Day 1 || 78% || 34 total: 4 in stream ||
 * Day 2 || 60% || 34 total: 13 in stream ||

Assigned Journal #4: