Sasha's+Journal

__Free Journal:__ I chose to observe the near shores of Kahala Beach. I marked out four corners of a part of the ocean near the beach so that it was easy to look at the animal life that was in the water, yet still be able to observe the other types of organisms near and on the beach. The water is quite low-tide at most times of the day. The depth of my ecosystem is about 0-5 ft. The plant and animal life isn't too colorful, but there are still many types of organisms living around the beach. There is a lot of brown and green sea weed and of course sand in my classroom sized ecosystem. There are also many types of coral for little fish to graze upon in the rectangle. I didn't see tons of species of fish, but I did find at least four species and some traveled in large quantities. This ecosystem will be a good place to study because it has a lot of factors that play into the animals' life that live near Kahala Beach. It is also a good place to observe because there are a lot of fish that live in different niches, so that will give me some type of diversity in niches when I'm observing this eco-place for the rest of the semester.
 * __Visit #1:__**

__Assigned Journal:__ I found many organisms while observing the shallow waters of Kahala Beach. I found a sea cucumber which was living on an open patch of sand in between big pieces of coral. I found a Humuhumunukunukuapua'a that seemed to have its niche in the coral. It also seemed to like to come out of the coral to look around in between the surface of the water and the tips of the coral tops. There was a Butterfly Fish and other types of fish that used a cinder block for protection and a home. This shows that there was some type of human interference and the fish ended up benefiting from it. There were Puffer Fish that would hang around the sandy parts of the reef and around pieces of coral. It would swim near the bottom around the surface of the sand. I saw a Sea Urchin that was attached to a big piece of coral. It was around other types of fish that used the same coral head as shelter and food. The Sea Urchin was covered with sand and camouflaged itself to look like the rock.



__Free Journal:__ My second visit wasn’t as eventful as I wanted it to be. I went late afternoon, when the weather was nice and sunny. The water was high tide and very clear. After observing the wildlife I decided that I’d focus on the Abiotic Factors of my eco-place. I chose to concentrate most of my research on the Abiotic Factors of the Kahala Beach Near shore because there wasn’t much diversity of other organisms or broad focal groups I could look at. During my first visit I found many fish, and I tried to look in the same spots where I found them before, but I couldn’t find any except for a few fish. So, I decided to look at things that were very constant in my eco-system and hopefully I’ll come up with answers for my questions that I came up with during my visit. Some questions for my focus would be...
 * __Visit #2:__**

Why isn't there a lot of coral diversity? Does the location of the reef have anything to do with how the coral grows or what type of coral grows there? Could the possibility of it being so close to the beach, and so close to human contact make the reproduction process not as high as the coral that are in deeper depths? Is there anything that fish don’t like that are living and growing on the coral?

While I was observing my eco-place it didn’t have any color or diversity. It also seemed as if there weren’t any fish eating off of the coral or using it for shelter. Actually, it appeared that there weren’t any fish at all. I spent a long time trying to find fish or other organisms that might feast off of the coral, but I found none. I hypothesized that the location of my eco-system is a variant of why fish or other organisms don’t there and why there aren’t many differences in coral there. One way I can see if the location is a variant to the corals’ reproduction would be to swim farther away from the shore and observe what types of coral there are. If it appears that there are more species of coral farther away from the beach then I might think about what might be causing that. It could possibly be because of the amount of human interaction in that area. I also wonder why the coral isn’t different. Is there something special about these specific species of coral living in that area? Can they obtain sustainability when the water is low tide?

__Assigned Journal:__ In my eco-place I didn’t find many predatory pressures that may drive natural selection to my habitat. I didn’t really find predation, because I didn’t find many organisms that interacted with each other in any way, let alone any organisms at all. But there were some environmental pressures that I found. One environmental or other pressure I found was about the habitat of the organisms living in my eco-place. There is not a lot of human activity that happens around my eco-place, but human activity nonetheless. When people are around the coral they end up stepping on it and irritating the habitat. If the coral is put under natural selection to be able to survive and are having a hard time reproducing then the fish eating off the coral with have a hard time as well, because of the particles that live on the coral. If the coral doesn’t survive then the particles that live on the sea weed that are on the coral will not survive, and when the fish can’t get their food source from the sea weed then they are pushed under natural selection. The heritable variations in my eco-place are quite subtle to recognize. Three examples of heritable variation would be a school of fish that are the same as the seaweed that they eat. The fish were a beige color and so were the particles that they ate. This would probably make it easier for it to eat and not be seen by predators. Another example of heritable variations in my eco-place would be the sea urchin that blended in with the coral that it attached itself to. The sea urchin was attached to the bottom part of a coral head. It was very hard to see: because 1. It was located on the bottom part of the coral and 2. Its texture look exactly like the coral head that I thought it was apart of the coral. The third examples of heritable variation in the Kahala Beach Near shore eco-system would be when a baby Puffer Fish was skimming the top of the sand and it was hardly noticeable. The color of the fish was a light brown, just like the sand, and it was so smooth with the way it swam. It seemed as if the fish was moving with the flow of the water.

__**Visit #3:** Free Journal:__ For my 3rd visit I went to my eco-place around noon. It was somewhat windy and cloudy, although towards the end of my visit it started to get sunny. The water was higher in terms of the tide and the water was pretty clear with less turbidity than usual. The waves were somewhat choppy coming from the southeast (from Koko Head). During my second visit I didn’t find any fish or any types of sea animals, but this trip I was pretty successful. I was only able to see the fish and water clearly when the sun came out and the waves calmed down. I found a pair of puffer fish and a school of Moorish Idols. The puffer fish were around and inside the coral heads. The Moorish Idols were swimming around the swallow water near the shore. They were swimming around a lot. The Moorish Idols were in a school of about five or six. Other than that those were the only fish I could find. I partly believe that because I was the only person swimming and at the beach the fish came out from hiding in the coral. The coral was the same. Although I observed something that I hadn’t seen before. It looked like there was some type of black algae on the coral heads. I wonder if it is another species of algae or seaweed.

My three testable inferences will be… This inference was made because when the water was very low during my second visit I didn’t see any fish and during the third visit there were more fish present. This inference was made because in the beginning of my third visit the water was very choppy, but by the end of the visit the water was less choppy and that’s when I found the fish. This inference was made because during my second visit there were a lot of people that were swimming around my eco-place. Then, during my third visit I was only one at the beach, and that’s when I found the fish. I base these inferences/hypothesis on what I've seen and the differences I've observed in my past three visits.
 * 1. If the tide is higher then there will be more fish present in my eco-place.**
 * 2. If the waves are less choppy then there will be more fish present.**
 * 3. If there are more people at the beach then there will be less fish present.**

__Assigned Journal:

Visit #4: 1. Observations:__ For my fourth visit I went to visit my eco-place two times because of my experiment. The sky was pretty sunny and the turbidity of the water was pretty clear for both times I went. The water was also very calm during both the times I went. The water was pretty low the first time and the second time I went it was high tide. My observations for my fourth visit were pretty much the same as the last three visits. The activity did not change as much. I saw the same type of fish as I did the first three times. There were two puffer fish, royal angelfish, and like the last time I saw Moorish Idols. My eco-place seemed like it was untouched since the last time I went. The same fish were swimming around the same spots that I found them.

__Experiment:__ The hypothesis I decided to test was the inference that “If the tide is higher then there would be more fish present in my eco-place.”

I set up my experiment by going to my eco-place when it was high tide and low tide. I would focus on one particular spot of my eco-place and base my results on the observations I made from that one area.

The water was low tide at 1 pm, and I didn’t find many fish. The water was at high tide at 5:30 am; unfortunately I couldn’t make it down to the beach until 7 am. Just like the water at low tide, I did not find many fish either.

During the time that it was low tide I only found the puffer fish and the Moorish Idol. When it was high tide I also found the Royal Angelfish, along with the two other types of fish.

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Conclusion:__ I conclude that the tide really doesn’t have any effect on the amount of fish that are present in my eco-place. I think I’d have to go beyond this experiment to find out the real reason why there weren’t many fish during both times, and why there aren’t a variety of fish in my eco-place.

__2: Carbon Cycle__