Sam's+Journal

=**First Visit: October 12th ** =

When we arrived at Sandy’s Tide pools it was 9:42 AM, the tide would be considered high, and the sun was barely out. The sun wasn’t the only thing hiding, most of the living creatures were hiding between or inside of rocks. The tide pools were full of water because of how high the tide was. Almost every rock cranny was engulfed in water. The living organisms that could be seen were small crabs, small insects, a sea urchin type thing, and small guppies of dark brown color. The living organisms were all hiding in either the rocks or sand. The guppies were around ½ inch in size and the fly like insects were also small. The crabs that I did see were small, and quickly scurried into the sand. For plant life, the algae is clearly abundant and is either a lime green or dark green/brown. Also there are some type of beach bushes growing near the parking lot, which look more manicured and “man grown”. Some of the more significant abiotic factors in our eco-place are rocks, water, sand, and temperature. The rocks are really significant to life in our eco-place because without rocks, most of our living creatures would have no shelter. Water is an abiotic factor because whether the water is still water or moving like a river determines the type of organisms living in it. The sand is significant because it is definitely not scarce in our eco-place, the sand allows another niche for different species, like the small sand crab we saw. Another abiotic factor that is important is the temperature, the temperature is set, and this can cause certain creatures to thrive and others to probably die. An abiotic factor that is not necessarily thought of often is the cloud cover. Cloud cover of an area generally affects how much sunlight can be received for the process of photosynthesis to occur. But each abiotic factor is important in our eco-place. I’m unsure if Sandy’s will be a good place to study for the rest of the semester, but I think that it will be. It’s just that the morning that our first visit took place was somewhat dreary and the high tide disabled us from seeing much life. Sandy’s Tide pool seems promising though, and it has potential because of the variety of niches that are available, whether that being the sand, water, or rocks.
 * //Describe your area. What kind of plant life and animal life do you notice? What are the significant abiotic factors in this place? Explain why you think this area will be a good place to "study" for the rest of the semester. This portion should be between 400-600 words.//  **

**//Chosen Topic: Describe the niches of at least four different organisms in your eco-place in 400-600 words.//**

The four different niches that could be easily observed were in the sand, ocean, rocks, and plants/bushes. The sand in our eco-place was mainly medium grained and was a variation of the colors brown, light brown, and white. Along with the regular sand there was also a black sand. The black sand is lightly patched on the sand and doesn’t necessarily take up all of the beach like the regular sand so it is most likely to be beneath the regular sand. The black sand isn’t really found near the bushes or where the water breaks, but generally in the middle. The living organisms that we observed in this niche were some small sand crabs. Another niche that I observed at our eco-place was the ocean. The ocean is mainly occupied my fish, like small brown guppies. The water is clear and has large waves and would be considered high tide. This niche wasn’t really observed as intently as others because we physically didn’t go into the water. The temperature of the water was cold and this possibly could be because of how much the clouds were covering the sky. The next niche observed were the rocks, the rocks were interesting because they were more like a niche within a niche. The larger rocks had smaller rocks and within the small rocks were crannies and crevices that were shelters for living organisms. So the general size of the rocks at Sandy’s varies in size. However the algae on the rocks were not very dynamic, the colors that we saw were either lime green on dark brown. The algae takes up a lot of the rocks surface. Although the size of the rocks varied most of the rocks were large and were probably around two feet and one and a half feet tall. The last niche was positioned away from the ocean and rocks, the plants and bushes. The plants and bushes were don’t take up much of our eco-place and the bushes that we saw were a vivid shade of green and were occupied with bugs. The plant life observed on our first visit consisted of palm trees, bushes, shrubs, and plants that you could ordinarily find at other beaches. The plants could possibly be man grown and not as natural a niche as the others we observed, and maybe just manicured every so often, so that the beach looks welcoming and not just an overbearing sand filled beach. =Pictures* =













=Video* = media type="youtube" key="9F4eDvlBWNs" height="344" width="425" My first video is a bit amateur but by the next visit I should have the whole videoing thing down. Also later on we found that the better tide pools could be found further down sandy beach, so our eco-place has slightly shifted to a better location. =**Second Visit: November 1st ** =  Assigned role: Observer of abiotic factors/photographer


 * //Write 400-600 words of focused observations of your Eco-place. At this time you should have taken on an assigned role that will narrow your interest in this Eco-place. Perhaps you are focusing on the insect like, the Fish life, the Plant life or the Abiotic Factors that heavily effect the community of living things in your designated Eco-place. Please choose your focus with consideration to others in your group.//

**   Upon our second visit my assigned role was abiotic factor observer and photographer. The main abiotic factors that I had noted on my last journal were rocks, water, sand, and temperature. I observed these same factors a bit closer for my second visit. Now that we were observing actual tide pools, there were a lot more living organisms found. The abiotic factors still remained the same, but there was generally a lot more to observe. The rocks still could be found in a variety of different sizes but I think that the rocks were harder and harsher on the feet than the algae covered rocks that we found in our first visit. The rock is more likely to be lava rock, and the color ranged from a grey black to a tan color. The other abiotic factor that I closely observed this time was the ocean water. The water was more of a low tide this time, but the tide pools were still engulfed in water. Every time a wave came in the living organisms would scurry into a rock crevice. The water hitting against the rocks created white wash and foam, which had to dissolve in order for the organisms to be further observed. Some questions that I acquired from this visit included: During high tide where do the organisms go? How old are the rocks and what caused them to be such funny shapes? Because we observed so many types of crabs, each different colors and size, Which crab is the “fittest,” the crab similarly colored to the rocks or the bright orange one? Why are there so much rocks? Does the temperature of the environment or the temperature of the water matter more to the living organisms in our eco-place? I also noticed that the living organisms didn’t really come out of their shelter/crannies of rocks until the sun came out. Is it because they also have daily routine like us? or because they can only see clearly with sunlight?

**//Write 400-600 words about some of the environmental (or predatory) pressures that are driving Natural Selection in your Eco-place. Provide at least THREE examples of organisms in your Eco-place with heritable variations that might take them more (or less) fit than their intra-species competitors.//**

During our second visit, the pressures or predators in our tide pools that I noticed were the temperature and human interaction. The temperature can be a pressure in our eco-place because of global warming the warmer the climate becomes it might become harder for the living organisms to adjust and eventually just die out, considering it was so warm and so early in the morning. Human interaction is a big pressure in our Eco-place, because so many tourists and local surfers go to Sandy’s for sight seeing or a good wave, the interaction is on a daily basis. Liter is easily visible in our habitat and later down the line it will be a big harm to the organisms living here. The human interaction could be causing the living organisms in our Eco-place to become faster and less likely stepped on or killed. The crabs at Sandy’s vary in size and color, there are small sand crabs and large, slow red crabs along with smaller, faster grayish crabs that blend in with the rocks better. I think that natural selection caused this and that the fitter crab is the faster gray toned crab because it is smaller and could fit into more crevices than the other crab and blends in with the environment better. The guppies are another example of natural selection taking place in our Eco-place. Some guppies were small, around one inch, and dotted with light tan-ish dots while the others were larger, around two to three inches, and had larger fins. I think that both of the guppies have advantages but that the larger guppy will generally be more fitter because it is larger than the other guppies, but not too large, and has larger stronger fins to move more swiftly in the water, and less likely to be eaten by predators. The predators of the guppies and crabs are probably humans and birds. The last example of natural selection, is the pigeons. There were two types of pigeons that could be seen on our second visit, and they were either white or blackish gray. I think the more fitter pigeon in this habitat and environment would be the darker black ones, because while on the rocks it would have an easier time of catching prey and I think that these pigeons spend more time on the rocks than flying so that it would be an advantage to be the same color as the rocks. And the predator of the pigeon could be larger birds passing through the Eco-place in need of food or humans. Humans could be considered a predator because we a generally killing their population due to littering and taking away their food/prey, like the fish and crabs.

=Pictures* =

























=Third Visit: November 23rd = //**Continue your focused observations and compare them to previous observations. Make inferences (relevant to your assigned role) and propose hypotheses. Finally, create 3 testable hypotheses from these inferences. You should use the "If… Then… " format. As usual, this section should be 400-600 words.**//
 * Free Journal Entry:**

For our third visit, I acquired data for my experiment. This visit there wasn’t much activity because it was high tide and the waves kept thrashing, so most of the aquatic organisms were hidden in rocks and such. The weather was overcast and there wasn’t much sun exposure. Our last visit was later in the morning and the weather was sunnier, this might have to do with the presence of organisms. Also there was less cloud covering. During my third visit, I only saw a few guppies, snails, and crabs. Compared to last visits observations there wasn’t much to compare considering absence of actual organisms to compare. But from these last two visits, I learned that there are abiotic factors that alter when and where the aquatic organisms swim in the tide pools or stay in the crevices of rocks. Although I saw less creatures this visit, I did see a large fish. It was about 5 ½ inches in size and was grayish rainbow color. I think that this fish was larger because it blended in with the rocks in the tide pool better. The plant life generally looked the same. For my hypothesis, I related the depth of the tide pools to how many aquatic organisms would be present. As if the amount of water relates to how different types of creatures it can hold. If the depth of the tide pool is deeper, then there will more of a variety of different species present. I infer that this hypothesis will be correct because the larger and deeper the tide pool is, the more organisms there are. And I noticed that the more organisms there are, the more likely they are to be different species. // **• Describe some of the community interactions you observe (400-600 words) OR • Create a food web that includes 10 different types of organisms in your Eco-space (display as a picture) OR • Create an energy pyramid, biomass pyramid or pyramid of numbers for your Eco-space (display as a picture) **
 * Assigned Journal Entry:**

// =Fourth Visit: December 7th  = // **• Continue focused observations. Compare these observations to your previous observations to your previous observations. • Conduct your experiment using one of the hypotheses you generated during your third visit. Describe procedures. Put data in tables or graphs. • Draw conclusions based on the results of your experiment** //   At 8:11 am we arrived at our eco-place. I immediately noticed that it was very hide tide. The waters barely allowed there to be any visible activity in the tide pools. Although there was barely any organisms were active however, there was a lot of human interaction. Along with us, there were about 10 scuba divers. The temperature was mildly cold (70ºF or 21.11111111111111ºC) and windy and the sun was hidden behind the clouds, so that might have to do with the organisms and their perceptibility. There was a lot of visible human interaction this time. Also barely being any organisms active I came along a speared eel. The eel was twirled in a large open crevice of a rock. The rotting smell and gnats probably came from the eel. I’m not sure how long it was there, but probably not very long because it wasn’t totally decomposed. The eel was pretty large in size, about the length of my arm was visible, so it was probably longer than my arm’s length. Besides the eel, there were a lot of noticeable killed organisms like rockfish and crabs. My previous observations from last visit didn’t include much human interaction because there wasn’t much that could be observed. The observations from this visit are also differ majorly from my last three visits because this visit the tide was really high and it was earlier in the morning so the sun wasn’t as bright and I think these factors impact the activity of the organisms in our eco-place. For my experiment the procedure was pretty simple; mainly because I was it just called for measuring the depth of the tide pool and counting the number of different species in the tide pool. 1) Measure depth of tide pool with measuring tape. 2) Count number of visible species of organisms. 3) Note the species and write a brief description. <span style="font-size: 90%; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"> || __ **<span style="font-size: 90%; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Species ** __ |||| __ **<span style="font-size: 90%; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Description of Species ** __ || || <span style="font-size: 90%; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">0 || <span style="font-size: 90%; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">none || <span style="font-size: 90%; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">none || || <span style="font-size: 90%; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">2 || <span style="font-size: 90%; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">snail and small guppy || <span style="font-size: 90%; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">snail has a white shell and is about a centimeter in size. Guppy is dark brown with black stripes about 2 inches in size and swims fast. || || <span style="font-size: 90%; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">5 || <span style="font-size: 90%; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">guppies, fish, hermit crabs, black crab, and snails || <span style="font-size: 90%; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Guppies are green and black striped and are about 2 ½ inches long. The larger fish was a rainbowish grey and about 5 ½ inches long and bigger in size compared to the guppies, not as long looking. The snails has black shells and were about a centimeter small. ||  From my data, I can conclude that the deeper the tide pool the more likely there is to be different species because there is usually more niches. I think this makes sense, because the more niches the more the different organisms can thrive without competition. **Assigned Journal Entry:** // **• Create a diagram representing the different aspects of the carbon cycle as it flows throughout your eco-place. OR • Take a picture of 5 different organisms and classify them by Kingdon, Phylum, Class and Order(you may go further if you like). Make sure you also identify by their "common name".** //
 * Free Journal Entry:**
 * PROCEDURE**:
 * __ <span style="font-size: 90%; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">**Depth of Tide Pool** __ || __ **<span style="font-size: 90%; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Number of Different Species Present ** __
 * <span style="font-size: 90%; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">10 inches
 * <span style="font-size: 90%; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">10 inches
 * <span style="font-size: 90%; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">28 inches