Josh's+Journal

My 4th journal entry Free Write As you know my experiment is to see if it has rained then there will be less to no fish left in the stream. Well I went down the stream twice to count how many aquatic animals and twice when it had rained. The first time I went to see how many aquatic animals there were. There were 37 aquatic animals the first time I went to count. After it hard rained I went down in the rain to count how many aquatic animals there were. I counted 17 aquatic animals after it had rained I think this because it was not a very hard rain it was more of a drizzle rain. The second time that I went down the stream to count there were 49 aquatic animals in the pond area. After it had rained (this was a very hard rain and it was about 4 inches of rain) I went down to check and I only counted 3 aquatic animals. This proves that when it rains, my stream areas animals get washed out, until replenished later. Animals Kingdom, phylum, class, and order My 3rd journal entry Free Write As I went to my third visit I had to make some more observations on the animals that lived there. The first thing that I saw was that the Cray fish normally like to stay to the edges and hide in the shade areas. I can also see the Cray fish moving these little fingers by their mouth. I think they are using these little fingers to pick up tiny food particles and put them in their mouth. The fish that I saw normally just roam around the middle of the pond area and eat little bits of food with there mouths. They pretty much go everywhere. The insects that live there are the mosquitoes and the honeybees. The mosquitoes obviously go by the water and that’s where they normally stay. The honeybee’s stay next to the flowers because I think they want the flowers nectar and so they can help pollinate it. The tadpoles that live in the pond normally stay towards the bottom of the water and in the shade. I think the tadpole stay in at the bottom of the pond because it has the most protection and the tadpoles body and fragile and they need to be protected before they evolve into a toad. From the last time that I came there is not really much difference in the behavior of the animals. As I was thinking at my eco place I thought of only one hypothesis even though I was suppose to pick three. My hypothesis was that if it had rained then most or all of the aquatic animals in the pond area would be gone because it would be washed down stream. I would test this by counting the amount of aquatic animals, then I would go down to the stream when it is raining or right after and I would count how many less there are were from before. I would also look on like to see how much rain fall had fell that day and see if it has an affect on how much animals were gone. I think this will work because the area I am in is connected to the Mania stream and when it rains then all the water flows though it. This will cause an excessive amount of strong current water to pass right though my eco place. In my entire hypothesis is if it rains then there will be less aquatic animals in the pond area of my eco place. Food Web My 2nd journal entry

Free Write At my second visit to my eco place I have assigned my self to be focusing more on the animal life. In my stream as I said in my first entry there are many different kinds of animals in my eco place. There are shrimp, fish, toads, bees, insects, dragonfly, mosquito’s, and other miscellaneous bugs. The observations I made at my eco place is that the bees are there because there are flowers that they use to pollinate off of. The mosquito’s show up because there is a water source and they like to be near water. The fish tend to normally roam around the pond area and the prawns or shrimp like to hide in the dark corners. In my eco place the stream area normally always has flowing water. The fish in my eco place stay down words the bottom of the stream. I think they do this because the fish don’t like the rougher water at the top so they wait at the bottom for the water to settle down a bit. In my eco place there is a lot of grass and weeds that surrounds the water pit. On one side the weeds are a lot taller and thicker than the ones of the other side. I think this because the side that is longer is on the side where there is shade. This means that the thicker taller side will be bigger because it is not getting bombarded by the sun as much as the side in the sun. I am still trying to figure out why the grass around my water area is a lot taller than the grass that is not by the water area. If I were to make a hypothesis to this I would say that the grass around the water is thicker and taller because less people walk on it to flatten it down. As I said before I found out one of the predator prey relationships are the fish and the algae. While I was there at my second visit I also noticed that the crayfish or shrimp like to feed of the alge to. While I was at my second visit I saw a new animal, which I mentioned at the top, I got to see a blue and red dragon fly. I am not sure why it came this time but I am guessing it had to do with the water.

Assign As I said many times before there are a lot of animals that live in my eco spot. The ones that I pay most attention to are the crayfish, fish, and snails. All of these animals all have one thing in common. They have all evolved differently. Starting with the snails. In my eco place I see many different kinds of sails and the reason there are many different kinds is because they all have adapted differently to their surroundings. Sooner or later there will be only one kind of snail in my area because it would have adapted the best to the environment. This is called, as you know survival of the fittest. In my pond area the some of the things the snails have done to stay alive and be the fittest snail are having camouflage shells, smaller lighter shells, and being able to move faster. The snails that I saw that have all three of these things are mostly likely to survive and the others that don’t will parish. For my second animal the crayfish, I saw allot of way how they evolved to be the survival of the fittest. First some of the crayfish have one big claw and one small claw. I am guessing that they use the small one for eating and the big one for hunting. If they had to big ones than it would be to heave to carry around and it would be hard to eat with a big claw. And if they had two small ones than they would not be able to hunt because their claw is too small to kill anything. Also these crayfish have tails on there back. I am guessing that the crayfish used to be creatures that just walked on the floor of the stream but in time evolved tails so that they could swim and propel through the water. Lastly these crayfish have eyes that can look everywhere because they are on little sticks. I think they evolved like this because the needed to see move angles around them to avoid being eaten by predator. Lastly the fish, some of the things that the fish may have evolved into to survive are its second pair of flippers under its belly. I think it has these because maybe it needed extra power or speed to avoid predators or it needed it to be stable in the water so it could swim in a straight line.

The eco place that I visited is a very nice place but at the same time it is a very bad place. It is a god place because there is a water source and plant source. The bad part is that weeds and some plants overwhelm my eco place. The plants that are taking over my eco place are many different types off weeds. Other plants that live in my eco place are flowers (the ones bee’s normally pollinate on) and trees. The animals that live in my eco place are Fish, Tadpoles, Crayfish, Frogs, Alge and it has little flowers growing in a lot of places. On one side of my eco place there are trees that give it somewhat protection from the sun. The water source is not that big but it is enough to keep a stable life for most of those animals. The bad part about this water is that it is some what polluted so it affects the environment of these animals. It is very brown muddy water and it is very shallow. The color or muddiness of the water depends on whether it has rained or not. Because my eco place is located in Manoa valley where it is known to rain a lot there is no telling weather the source of water will get high or get lower. If I go to my eco place when it has recently rained it could have washed out all of the fish further down stream so I am going to have to go at a constant time when it is not raining so I can get sustainable results. One of the predator prey relationships I found in my eco place is the fish eating the alge. I think this place is a very good place to study for my projects because it shows the predator and prey relationship and it is somewhat a well-balanced area. The disadvantages to my eco place are that humans may temper it and it is small with limited space. Having said that I am going to try my best in doing research on it and making predictions and descriptions as best I can.

In my eco place there is a somewhat obvious predator prey relationship. The predator relationship that I saw was the fish/tadpoles where eating the alge off the rocks. While I was visiting my eco place I did not clearly see all of the fish eating alge off rocks but I saw some. The fish do not have teeth so that is why they have to eat the alge because it is nice and soft and they are able to suck it right off. There are not many fish in the pond area of my eco place but there is an excessive amount of alge. Once time the fish will eat the alge and reproduce in tell the alge grows scarce. Then the fish population will go down and the alge will grow back and the cycle will repeat it self. This predator prey relation ship is just like a lot of other predator relationships in the fact that there is a prey and predator and there is a never-ending cycle unless of course one species goes extinct which will take a very long time. As I was observing the different animals that ate the alge I also found out that some Cray fish also like to feed of the alge. I think that the alge in the stream is one of the main food sources that the animals need to feed off of to stay alive. This predator prey relationship shows that it is not hard for the predator to hunt for its food, it doesn’t even need to hunt for its prey because it just sits there so the alge is at a big disadvantage. I will keep on observing my eco space to see how the predator prey relation ship is going, but for now talk o you next time.