Cole+C's+Journal+(130)+3

__**Free Journal**__ During this visit to my eco-space, I have continued to make focused observations on the animals, like birds, insects, fish and more, in my habitat. Last visit I talked about the different birds that are found in my habitat, where they live in the habitat, and how they compare to birds that are seen everyday in the cities. For this journal, I have chosen to talk about the different insects in the habitat and where they live in the habitat.

The first thing I noticed while observing the insects was that the most prominent species were the ants. I sat down on the forest floor for a moment and was immediately engulfed in a colony of ants. This was interesting to me because the ants were one of the smaller species of insects yet they were the most prominent in the habitat. This must be because the ants have power in numbers and can easily work together to overcome any larger type of insect.

Also, I observed that most of the insects inhabited the forest floor, which is made up of dead sticks and leaves, as you can see in the picture below. Under these leaves in is moist and warm. Perhaps these conditions are best for insects because it will be easier to dig into the ground to escape predators or start colonies underground like ants do. There was also evidence of termites burrowing into the dead stick that were scattered across the forest floor.

But the ground insects are not the only ones that call my habitat their home. There is also the flying kind, like bees, such as the carpenter bee and the honeybee, flying beetles, and fruit flies. I observed that they enjoy the more sunlit areas that have more trees and bushes with flowers. One of the flowers that the bees were using to collect nectar to bring back to their colonies you can see in the picture below.

For my next visit, I will be testing some hypothesis that I have made about my habitat and the animals that live in it. These hypotheses are; if a tree is healthier then there will be more animals living in it, if there is more duckweed growing in the water then there will be more fish in the water, and if the water is clearer then there will be more fish in that area.

There are still many more things to find out about my habitat and the animals that live there and I will keep you posted in the weeks to come.







This is an energy pyramid I made for my ecosystem.
 * __Assigned Journal__**