Trevor's+Journal

Free Journal #1 I think Moanalua Gardens is a good place to study because it is very close to most of the members in my group. It is a very big place that is teeming with plant life and has a steam running through it that leads into the ocean. There many different types of birds that fly around the gardens, because they are probably attracted by all the seeds dropped from the trees. In the steam there are different types of fishes and some crabs. The main abiotic factors in this area is the amount of rocks and litter in the steam. The river is just a bed of rock with water flowing through it so the fish have a hard time moving up and down steam. Also because of these rocks litter gets easily trapped in between polluting the water. Another abiotic factor was the erosion caused by the river. You distinctly see where the erosion caused by the river has happened. The banks of the river are very slanted and shows signs of erosion that must of happened over a long period of time. There might be some health or safety problems with Moanalua Gardens, because there is a small stream that contains sewage that merges with the main stream and it contains leptospirosis. So we need to careful of that and not fall in the water or expose it to open wounds. Also Moanalua Gardens isn't a very natural place in my eyes. The field has been garden and fertilized so the grass has sort of been artificially grown and wasn't natural. It is also cut and care for by many gardeners. There are also many dimples in the ground where there are sprinklers, so the amount of water the grass and other plants get isn't natural. Also there is the fact that Moanalua Gardens is a pretty heavily visited tourist spot. About every 30 minutes there are buses and vans that come who bring lots of tourist that walk throughout the gardens. This is probably a big reason why the garden is so maintained by gardeners and not allowed to grow naturally without any help from humans. So we must take this into consideration when studying this place. There is also the fact that a freeway runs right along the stream of Moanalua Gardens so it doesn't make the place very natural because on one side of the stream bed there is all this concrete and other construction which kind of prevents the place from flourishing naturally.

Journal Entry #1 The four types of organisms we found at Moanalua Gardens were birds, crabs, fishes, and dragonflies. Some of these organisms had similar niches and some did not. The birds at Moanalua Gardens seem to have a pretty specialized niche. The birds eat the seeds that dropped from the tree or scraps of bread/food that sometimes people left. Also the birds take home in the trees and make nest in there branches. The birds niche I would say is pretty specialized to this area because if they lose the trees that the birds get food from and nest in then they just lost there nesting grounds and one of there main food sources. Another organism we found was the crab. In the muddy banks of the river they dug holes and buried beneath the ground and also lived under the rocks in the stream. The crabs niche is pretty open because it it can live pretty much anywhere near the stream and doesn't need to always be submerged in water. Also they seem to be scavengers in this environment as we found one eating a dead a fish floating in the river so they seem to eat what they can get. Being able to live in the water and outside of it really seems to help the crabs survive in there niche. Another organism we found was the fish. The fish seemed to have a pretty small niche in this area. Most of the fish were small and were feeding off the algae growing on the rocks. But the rocks also kind of hurt the fish because they are all over the river and block certain areas making it impossible for some fishes to travel up and down steam unless they are able to just over these rocks. The fishes niche is really small because there only food supply is the algae on the rocks and they can't go out into the open ocean because there is the risk of predation. The last organism we observed was the dragonfly. There niche seemed to be the largest of all the organisms we observed. When the tide of the river was low it exposed most of the rocks to sunlight which attracted a lot of nats and other types of bugs. The dragonfly seemed to be feeding of these nats and other bugs during low tides. But since dragonflies can fly they aren't limited to this area, so they can travel all over the place in search of food.

Free Journal #2 The topic in my group that I'll be focusing on is the plant life of Moanalua Gardens. Some questions I'll be asking are, why is all the grass around the monkey pod trees is dead or gone, yet the grass that isn't covered by the monkey pod trees branches is thriving? Is this due to gardeners and is suppose to look like this, or is because of the huge monkey pods trees that are over shadowing it and not letting the grass grow? Another question would be, how does the a patch of grass just grow in the middle of a stream that has a flowing current and a river bed comprised of rocks and other pebbles? What kind of plant is this and how did it grow so fast? I'm asking this question because last time we visited about 3 weeks ago there wasn't any type of plants that were just growing in the middle of the stream. But at our last more recent visit we noticed a fairly big patch of tall grass in the center of the stream where there was just a bunch of rocks before. Another kind of question for this plant would be under what circumstances does it grow and how does it spread its seeds? Because you usually don't just see some plant growing in the middle of a flowing stream on rocks. Even if it did have roots in the soil underneath the rocks it would be mud which makes me wonder how this plant can survive? Another question I would ask about the plant life is how do the plants survive in this polluted stream? The stream has lots of litter in, including a a car battery which I think is leaking acid into the stream killing fishes and other aquatic animals. Also there is the fact that the waste treatment plant releases their processed sewage into this stream where it eventually flows down into the ocean. So with all this pollution and sewage waste how is that there are still some plants that are surviving in the water. As an example on the river bed there are these small plants that have roots similar to those of the hala tree that come that down and stick themselves right into the the polluted stream water. Ao this plant is drawing nutrients from the polluted water and is somehow still alive so it must have some sort of tolerance that enables it to survive in such filthy waters.

Journal Entry #2 An organism that has a heritable trait that pressures natural selection is the color of the crabs. Most of the crabs we saw in the stream were a very dark black-brown much like the color of the rocks they were living under, but there was one that was a slight orange color. This is a heritable variation that I think does affect the survival of the crab. As there were more dark color crabs than orange color ones, so it must affect their survivability or makes them more fit for the environment. Maybe the darker colored ones camouflage with the rocks in the stream so they are less visible to there predators (most likely birds), and to there prey (fish). So the darker colored crabs are the ones who are more fit because they can get food and avoid there predators better than the orange colored ones, which is the reason we saw so few of the orange colored crabs in the stream. Another organism that showed a heritable trait was the fish. The environment for the fish live in is very hard. The stream is mostly filled with rocks so it makes it very difficult to travel up and down stream. Also during low tides near the lower part of the stream it almost completely dries up to the point where yo can walk across the stream. The heritable trait we saw in the fishes was the ability the jump in the air and over the rocks, the, and the size of the fish. During lower tides the fish need to move upstream where there is more water and the only way to do that is to cross this certain part of the river where it is mostly just rocks. So as a result we saw fish jumping over the rocks to get upstream. Also we noticed that there were only small and fast fishes and hardly any decent sized ones. This may be a result of the environment not being able o support large bodied fishes so overtime they gradually got smaller and smaller due to natural selection. The last organism we saw was the dragonfly. The heritable trait we saw in it was the speed and agility of the dragonfly to catch it's prey. This probably did make the dragonfly more fit for its environment as the speed of the dragonfly helped it catch its prey which were other smaller and quicker insects such as nats. So if if the dragonfly wasn't fast enough to catch it's prey it isn't very well suited for the environment.

Free Journal #3 The topic that I'll be focusing on in Moanalua Gardens is the plant life. The visit before this we noticed how the grass around the gigantic monkey pod trees was all gone and was nothing but just dry dirt. This remained relatively the same as since the last visit no vegetation has grown in that section. I also noticed that this huge patch of grass that has just sprung out of the rock bed has also been thriving. In fact I think it has gotten bigger and spread more across the stream bed. I would say it at least covers about half the length from one bank to the other bank. I'm still wondering where this huge patch of vegetation came from though. The patch was not there the first time my group visited and only appeared to second time we visited. Although in that short amount of time between the first and second the visit, which was about 3 weeks, the patch of vegetation has grown significantly. I'm still wondering how that patch of vegetation even got there in the first place and what is the cause for its exponential growth spur. After I observed the patch of vegetation it seems to be a type of tall grass that can survive is harsh conditions. As this grass is living in a low tide stream on a bed of rocks. Literally the entire stream bed is covered in a layer of rock at Moanalua Gardens. Also there is always a constant flow of water flowing through the stream right where the patch of grass is. So I wonder how is the grass surviving? Would this be to much water for the plant? Also the roots of these plants are attached to the rock bed and don't seem to be going down past it into what I believe would just be a layer of sediment and mud. Some hypothesis I think I will be able to test are, If a patch of grass is left with it's roots in water on nothing but rocks and exposed to sunlight then it'll be able to survive. Another one I'm thinking of testing is, If a plant was to be watered with water from the stream/waste treatment water, then it won't survive as the pollution in the water will kill the plant. The last hypothesis I'm thinking of testing is, If you were to grow a smaller plant underneath the leafs of a much bigger plant, it won't survive because the smaller plant won't get any sunlight as the larger one will be blocking it.

Journal Entry #3



Free Journal #4 From the last time I visited Moanalua Garden's nothing has really changed dramatically. The patch of grass that was growing in the stream as expected has grown larger. This probably because it is type of weed that grows rapidly and spreads all over the place. If it goes unwatched any longer I wouldn't be surprised if nearly covers the distance from one bank of the stream to the other. Also when the low tide of the stream seems to be getting lower and lower every time we visit the Garden's and thus exposing the algae/moss on the rocks more to consumers like nats and other animals who eat it. The experiment I conducted involved the growth of the plants by the river based on the type of water they are exposed to. I said that the plants who were exposed to the cleaner water that came from the mountains would be more abundant and healthy because they are exposed to cleaner water. While the plants down stream that were exposed to water that came from the waste treatment plant would be less abundant because the water is dirty. My procedure was sort of complicated as there isn't a real accurate away to count the amount of plant life in a specific area. So what I did was I went the furthest upstream I could and tried to sort of count how much plant life I could find. Upstream the plant life was abundant and flourishing all over the place. Downstream where the waste treatment water merged with the main stream that came from the mountains the plant life was less abundant. Where waste treatment water merged with the cleaner water the plants were scare and there was much life there too. From that I can conclude that the cleanliness of the water does affect their health and how well they grow. Upstream where the water was cleaner the plants thrived and were abundant. Downstream where the clean stream merged with the waste treatment water the plant life was less abundant and actually there was barely any plant life there. Comparing the amount of plants upstream to the ones downstream, the upstream one definitely had much more plant life. Data Table Upstream Downstream Plant Life 34 13 36 12 (amount of plants I counted, it was a rough guesstimate)

Journal Entry #4