Jeanette's+journal+page

Visit #1
Free Journal: The area we are studying is Allen Davis, or also known as Ka`iwi Scenic Beach Park. It is a big area with many tide pools. On shore/land it is pretty dry with various types of “beach” plants growing. It is pretty rocky with very grainy sand. The rocks kind of surround the area and right in the middle there is a large body of water like a lagoon. The waves are constantly rushing in and breaking by the rocks. So, many of the rocks are constantly slammed by these rough waves. Because they are constantly hit with these strong waves pink rock is visible there. Pink rock is like the layer underneath the outer layer of the rock. The outer layer of the rock is slowly scraped away, and because of that alga is unable to grow in that area. The sunlight there is also pretty strong and plentiful. Although, very few areas of the tide pool do not get any sun because of the rocks that are towering over them. Hawaiian Salt can also be found there. Because some of the rocks are taller, when the wave rushes in and some of the water gets on top of the rock, it sits there in the sun with no where to go, so Hawaiian salt is made. The kinds of plant life I noticed were seaweed, orange algae/seaweed, naupaka, akulikuli, and ilima. We first looked at the water plants. A plant that stood out at me was the orange algae/seaweed. This stood out to me because I couldn’t explain the reason of it being this color. My best guess is that it’s orange from the orange rocks. I also saw some orange rocks. Earlier I thought that it was because of the orange algae/seaweed that cause the rocks to be orange, but then the thought of rust came into play. My partner, Keri, found a rusty metal plate in the water, about the size of a water bottle. We assumed that their must have use to been some sort of structure there that was obviously torn down. The rust made the rocks orange, which affected the color of the algae/seaweed growing on it. The kinds of animal life I noticed were crabs, fish, sea snails, hermit crabs, mudskippers, opihi, and purple urchin. There were also a lot of crab shells everywhere. I think this is mainly because they shed so much and not so much because other animals eat them. I assume this because we saw some hallow full body shells just standing on top of the rocks. There were also many hermit crabs and sea snails and we observed that they live in similar homes. However, the purple urchin had to be the coolest animal life I saw. It was really interesting and I had never seen one before. This area would be a good place to study for the rest of the semester because it has many varieties. We are able to observe on both land and water, and it is a large area with several types of different species and niches. This place also isn’t too heavily impacted by humans because it’s far in, and you have to sort of hike to it. So for the most part, everything is kept pretty natural.

Assigned Journal: Some organisms that I saw in my eco-place were orange seaweed, purple urchin, crabs, and akulikuli. The orange seaweed was very strange. The texture was kind of slimy and soft. Even though it is orange it does not live on top of rocks that are orange. It was also found in one of the smaller tide pools and lived in very shallow water. There were only a couple of inches of water above it. They probably eat the way any plant would eat, which is by photosynthesis. This explains why their niche is also exposed to lots of sunlight. One of the most interesting species I saw was the purple urchin. We found it on top of the rocks near the water where the waves were breaking. The purple urchin’s niche is on top of the rocks that are where the rough waters are. They cling on like opihi to the rocks. They like the rocks that are where the waves break because there are no algae there. With the waves continuously smashing against the rocks the outer layer starts to slowly fade away. Beneath the outer layer is pink rock and the algae are unable to grow on that. Because they live in such a rough habitat they have a very hard, solid outer shell. However, even though it has such a strong covering when we were observing it some parts of the shell fell off. Also the under side is very delicate, and gushy. The crabs were in many different places, but generally it was in the tide pools in the sunlight with water about six inches deep. I didn’t see any live regular crabs, but I saw many hermit crabs, and one pretty big black crab that was more toward the rough waves. The hermit crabs and the sea snails sort of all live together, because we noticed that they share the same kind of shells. They probably eat the little organisms they find in the water like mudskippers. As we were leaving we began to observe the plants on land and one of the plants that I haven’t seen in a while at the beach was akulikuli. It was kind of growing in the middle of two tide pools on sand. There was only a very small section of it, and near the rocks and water. It was not completely away from the tide pools like the other land plants we saw such as naupaka, and ilima. The akulikuli may have been closer to the water to water its roots and like any other plant they probably use photosynthesis to eat.

=**Visit #2**=

Free Journal:
My focus is on the abiotic factors of my Eco-place. The abiotic factors are mainly the amount of sunlight, waves, rocks, and sand. Since it is at a beach there is lots of sand, but the sand at my eco-place is also very grainy and rocky. This causes the eco-place to have no trees there, which causes direct sunlight to everything, besides the organisms that are sheltered by towering rocks. Because of this there are just shrubs of “beach” plants that can handle the abundant sunlight and poor soil, such as naupaka, akulikuli, and other plants. Our eco-place is located in Hawaii Kai, which does not have the most rainfall so the plants there also must be able to live off of little water. This direct sunlight also causes the making of Hawaiian salt. The washed up salt water just dries and leaves clumps of salt in the holes/dips of the rocks. The waves and rocks mainly affect the animal life at the eco-place. There are lots and lots of rocks everywhere and they are ridgy, bumpy, and some have many holes. They also range from a wide variety of shape, size, and color. There are colors such as white, green, orange, scarlet red, purple, pink, and several shades of brown. The waves there are very rough and strong, which cause the rocks to be more colorful and the type of organisms we mainly see living there. The ripping waves hitting against the rocks slowly scrap off the outer layer of the rock, making the pink rock we see. Urchins and other organisms love to live on those pink rocks because that’s the only place where seaweed can’t grow. For protection from the waves we usually see species with shells or shelled species, such as hermit crabs, sea snails, clams, opihi, purple urchins, and crabs. Majority of the rocks are also kept wet because it’s right next to the ocean, so algae and seaweed is plentiful there. Since there are a lot of rocks it’s the perfect place for them to stick on and feed off all the good nutrients on it. These factors also affect the predators. There are not many birds because it has limited types of food to feed on, no fresh water to drink, and no place to have a nest or home. However since there are a lot of limu, opihi, clams, etc., humans like to go there and pick whatever they can.

=Assigned Journal:= Some of the environmental pressures that are driving Natural Selection in my Eco-place would be birds, and humans. I’ve observed that a lot of humans love to fish there, because there are always people that are fishing when I go, extra fishing line lying around, and things built for fishing. From what I observed, many of the species at my eco-place such as crabs, and the purple urchin have heritable variations that make them more fit than their intra-species competitors. The crab is one that I saw many times. Even though I saw the crab many times it was more like I spy. Each time I saw it was because my classmates have amazing vision, and are very observant. They would see it and have to point it out to me and almost take me over there so that I could see it close up. As you probably know by now they were very hard to see, because they camouflage with their surroundings. Predatory has driven them into natural selection of looking like the environment it is in. Because of this it is now harder for their predators to seek them out, which gives the crabs a better chance of survival. The purple urchin is similar to the crab, but a little more complex because of where it lives. The urchin is a dark shade of purple (hence the name). It is located on very damp rocks (darker rocks) with specks of pink and purple. It is also located toward the bottom or the lowest side of the rocks so it is not easily visible. The rocks are very damp because they are the rocks that are constantly being pounded by rough strong waves. Along with camouflaging with its surroundings the way they’re formed also makes them more fit than their intra-species competitors. The constant pounding of the waves have driven them to evolve a very hard outer shell to protect them, and a very fragile soft inside that helps them stay suctioned to the rocks. This also makes it that its predator can only attack a hard outer shell. With the variations of its color, and the way it is formed it has a definite better chance of survival. Another specie that I observed is the fish in the tide pool. The variations they have, affect them both way. They can be both more fit than their intra-species competitor and less fit. All the fish I saw were black or really dark which made them stand out in the beige colored sand, and the clear water. This color variation makes them less fit because it is now an easy, visible target for their predators. However, since the rocks there are so dark this is when the darkness goes to their advantage. They are able to blend in with the rocks and not be seen. But I think because of the disadvantages of the darkness the fish have evolved into another variation, speed. They are very fast and hard to catch, which explains why I have no pictures of fish to show. So, even though the color has both its advantages and disadvantages, I think the quickness makes up for it, so the fish like the crab and purple urchin also have variations that help it be more fit than its intra-species competitor.



Free Journal:
When I went to visit my eco-place this time I actually went near the rough waves and the breaking water rather then just staying by the calm water. I knew that the purple urchins liked those kinds of conditions with the rough waters from my other observations, but I thought they were rare and that there probably wasn’t too much of it. As I looked over the rocks I was amazed. There were at least a hundred of them all glued to the rocks. However, it was like one of the only species able to live under those conditions. So, I inferred that areas with rougher water would have a smaller variety of species. This led me to my hypothesis: If the water is rougher, then there will be a smaller variety of aquatic species because most animals do not have the support or solid outer shell to protect them from the crashing waves. Another thing I had observed from my visit and previous visits were that some parts of the tide pools are completely exposed to sunlight while other parts are hovered by towering rocks, which blocks any sunlight from that part of the tide pool. I inferred that the parts of the tide pool completely exposed to sunlight would have a higher population of aquatic species. This led me to my hypothesis: If there is sunlight exposed on the tide pool, then the population of the aquatic species will be higher because vegetation appears when there is sunlight and animals are attracted to wherever the food source is. From the start I have been obsessed with the rocks at our eco-place because they are so colorful and also because they pretty much make up our eco-place. My eco-place is made up of a few tide pools and they each are different, containing different plant life and species in them. I have observed that almost all the organisms at our eco-place are reef animals, so they need rocks to live. I also have observed that some tide pools are made up of more rocks than others, so I inferred that the tide pools with more rocks would have a higher population. This led me to my hypothesis: If a tide pool is made up of or has more rocks, then the population of the aquatic species will be higher because there is more room for more animals to have their home on.

Assigned Journal:
=**Visit #4**=

Assigned Journal:
Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Echinodermata Class: Echinoidea Order: N/A Kingdom: Plantae Phylum: Magnoliophyta Class: Magnoliopsida Order: Campanulales kingdom: animalia phylum: echinodermata class: holothuroidea order: apodida kingdom: animalia phylum: arthropoda class: malacostraca order: decapoda



kingdom: animalia phylum: arthropoda class: crustacea order: decapoda

Free Journal:
When I went for my last visit to my eco-place something felt different, but it was probably because I hadn’t gone is a while. It was high tide again and nothing really had changed. Except, this time I was able to see more organisms than usual. In all the tide pools, I saw more fish coming out than before. And especially in these two certain tide pools were there not only a lot of fish, but big fish. The fish weren’t huge, but they were big for the tide pools we are looking at. The hypothesis I chose to test was if a tide pool is made up of or has more rocks, then the population of the aquatic species will be higher. I chose two tide pools that were about the same size. I began by counting the loose rocks that were in each tide pool. I chose loose rocks that were from 5in.-1-½ ft. big. After I recorded the number of rocks in the tide pool, I counted how many species I saw and recorded that. I repeated this same procedure for the next tide pool. When I was done my friend was testing another tide pool that was smaller, but it was an interesting tide pool so I decided to run my test in that tide pool as well. Based on the results of my experiment my hypothesis is incorrect. I think that the number of rocks in a tide pool does not affect the number of species in a tide pool. The last tide pool proved it all to me. Even though tide pool one and two proved my hypothesis correct it wasn’t as convincing evidence as tide pool three. The difference of aquatic species counted was four and all my data isn’t very reliable because it was based on what my eye saw. So, I could’ve easily counted the same fish again or missed some things. Tide pool three was a very important piece of data and is what I mainly used to draw to these conclusions.