5/10/13

Well since this is a late update I might as well inform that four fish have died.  Mrs. Wood gave me the bacteria instead of the dechlorinator when I siphoned our tank (which we're supposed to be doing everyday) , and fish cannot survive without the dechlorinator and since we aren't checking the tanks over the weekend, we didn't have a chance to figure out that I put in bacteria.  It's just very frustrating because we have had at least ten fish die already and we do everything we're told but I guess it's just bad luck.  We don't purposefully kill our fish I promise. Anyway our last quality check was very good (before the dechlorinator incident), our Nitrate was 5.0, ammonia was 0, temperature was 74 degrees.  So everything checks out pretty well the ammonia can be bad for the fish if it was too high so that's good, Nitrate should be about 5 too.  So this proves we are taking care of our fish! We did the water change about two days after the test because the floor of the tank was filthy.  I still feel awful about our fish dying but I guess accidents happen.

R.I.P. all the glowfish.

3/26 Squid Lab.

Squid Lab!

Six Interesting Facts About Squid

1.Squids have gills just like fish and has three hearts.

2. Some of the larger squid can weigh more than 1,000 pounds.

3. Most squid have only a one year life-span.

4. The only predators of the squid are mainly Sperm Whales.

5. Some species of squid are able to glow in the dark.

6. Some species have been found to live more than 13,000 feet deep in water.

                  The most interesting and disgusting thing we did is when our teacher Mrs. Wood came over, picked up the squids eyeball and smashed it. She showed us the lens inside of the eyeball. It was gross... She then told us that sailors used to capture squid, smash the eyeball and use the lens's to play marbles.

The thing I liked best was the ink sac because we would draw with it. The thing I didn't like was cutting it up into different parts and taking pictures of it.

 I would give everyone gloves if I were to change something about the lab haha..

It was very slimy.

 Eyeball                                                                  
 Beak                                                                        

 Fin

Gonad
 Gills

Pen

Heart/ink sack/Siphon,brain

Chromatophores/Mantle

3/21 THE NAVY:)

Two people from the navy came in and told us how aquatic science related with their job and told us what they did.

The navy has many different jobs. You could be a technichian, hacker, the people who fight, nurse, and a person in the nuclear proffesion.

The most interesting thing about it is how cheap it is. It's CRAZY! You would go to college and they would pay you for learning it, not you pay them for learning. So instead of being in debt after you get out of college, you would be home free.

It increased my understanding of the ocean when they talked about how important it is for them to be able to travel through the water efficiantly by depth mesurement devices with radio waves.  It also made me realize how important sonar is through water cause then they can see what is distruptive in the earths magnetic force and spot enemies.

The one thing I will definitely remember is the amount of money you will save and gain if you join the army. To bad I'm not going to but oh well, they are still awesome.

3/20

Whale Fluke Lab

Why are flukes used to ID whales?
So people can identify many different species of whales by their different scars and markings.
Why do scientists need this data?
To research, study them, or track the whale.
What was the most difficult part of this lab?
It was pretty easy.
How could I change this lab to make it better?
I would make it more competitive, then it would be funner...see who can identify all the whales first.
And I would have more identification cards to make it longer.

3/19

Why is overfishing a major concern?
Fishing is a major concern because it apart of humans resource and if we overfish then our recourses deplete.  Also, overfishing can cause marine species to die out because the fish hunt another species that's over eaten or fished.
How does it affect our daily life?
It affects our way of eating and what different sea food can be available to us.
What choices can you make to help?
We can choose different sea creatures for food that's not endangered or about to be and eat alternatives.
 

Fri. 3/8

Coral Bleaching

Warmer water temperatures can result in coral bleaching. When water is too warm, corals will expel the algae living in their tissues causing the coral to turn completely white. When a coral bleaches, it is not dead. Corals can survive a bleaching event, but they are under more stress and are subject to mortality.

Algae is also known as Zooxanthellae and it gives the coral its coloration and helps it thrive. When a coral is under stress however, it expels the zooxanthellae which leads it to be "bleached". 

Thousands of other organisms call coral reefs home- from large sharks and rays to tiny shrimp and worms. If most of the corals on a reef bleach and then die, this can impact the survival of many creatures that rely on the reef- either on corals as a food source or indirectly for a habitat.

This is very important because without coral reefs, food chains can become affected and many important species from it can die.

                                                                      

Thurs. 3/7

Four Problems Caused by Marine Debris

1.) Trash bags

Trash bags are a problem because animals like Turtles and Dolphins mistake them for jelly fish and eat them. This causes them to either choke or damage there insides.  Sea otters are also affected by this because they are very playful and ever once and a while play with these bags and can suffocate.

2.) Bottle caps.

Bottle caps either diluted on the shore or washed up from the ocean, can hurt birds most eminently. The birds either think the caps are eggs for themselves and eat them, or take them back to their children.  When they eat to much of these bottle caps they become full and starve without their natural nutrients for their bodies.

                                         

3.) Six Pack Rings

Six pack rings are left over from coke or other drinks and when they get in the water it can come terrible for some marine creatures. There have been cases where some organisms get caught in these at a young age and cannot escape it. This then stunts there growth causing the creature to stay trapped while they grow because it wont break off.

4.) Oil Spills 

Oil spills are another main threat to marine animals. They can get in an animals system and cause it to die from different internal failures or fur-bearing creatures can become oil soaked and die by their feathers or flippers sticking to their body, or by trying to clean themselves.

                                                      

Wed. 3/4

Blue Ringed Octopus 

Common name: The Greater Blue Ringed Octopus or the Lesser Blue Ringed Octopus 

Scientific name: Hapalochlaena Maculosa 

Adaptations: In the video they talk about how in order to scare away predators, their rings become a bright blue to say "don't eat me, I'm poisonous". A fact not included in the video is that the blue ringed octopus is one of only eight species that uses a rare toxin called Sheumack et al.  As the bacteria and the octopus evolved alongside each other, they developed a unique symbiotic relationship: the octopus gives the bacteria a home, while the bacteria produces a toxin for the octopus.

Hunting strategies: The Octopus eats different crustaceans and mollusks.  It especially uses it's toxin when trying to eat crabs. It wraps them up in its tentacles and gets under there belly, induces the toxin and then uses its strong beak to consume their prey.Something we didn't learn is that it has two poisons, one for defending itself and one for attacking it's prey.

Reproduction: In order to reproduce, the male octopus slips a special tentacle with a packet of sperm on the tip into the mantle of the female, where the sperm then fertilizes her eggs.

Interesting facts:

For one, this species cannot harm its own species with their poisons toxins. 

Another fact is that even though the blue ringed octopus seems unbeatable with no known threats, they only have a 2-3 year life span.

I chose this because I really think it is a very unusual creature and it's sort of pretty in a way.

Tues. 3/5

Sea Grasses

Adaptations:  Sea grasses have adapted most importantly to salt water through developing horizontal stems called rhizomes. They also have flexible blades that bend with little resistance to water movement.
Two ways sea grasses provides food: 
1) The detritus produced by bacteria breaking down dead sea grass plants provides food for worms, sea cucumbers, crabs, and filter feeders.
2) Because some invertebrates are kept healthy by sea grasses, this provides food for birds and fish.
Migrants, Travelers, and Residents of Sea grasses
There are different types of organisms that live in sea grasses like residents, who live in the sea grass full time, migrants, who migrate to the sea grasses daily and frequently, and travelers, who visit seasonally.

  

Monday 3/4

Five Benifits of Sea Grasses


1. Sea Grasses provide a nursury for small animals.

2. Provides energy for a coral reef.

3. Like the mangroves, it helps out the fishing industry.

4.Filters Sediments and toxins from the water.

5. Helps shores from eroding.

Fri. 3/1

VIDEO CLIP:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbN161yBBGA (couldn't upload directly)

Fishermen have problems fishing so they go to coral reefs.  Fisheries take large numbers of juveniles like groupers and make it harder for them to reproduce.  Slowly the populations of different fish caught decrease in numbers.  Without different fish populations around the coral reefs, the entire food chain could be effected as well as the reefs.

I chose this because I've always wanted to visit coral reefs and I would rate this video an eight on a scale of 1-10.

Thursday 2/28

Pollution

Plastic and synthetic materials are the most common types of marine debris and cause the

most problems for marine animals and birds. At least 267 different species are known to

have suffered from entanglement or ingestion of marine debris including seabirds, turtles,

seals, sea lions, whales and fish.

Marine debris is known to cause entanglement that includes old fishing gear such as

nets and mono-filament lines and also six-pack rings and fishing bait box strapping bands.

This debris can cause death by drowning, suffocation, strangulation, starvation through

reduced feeding efficiency, and injuries

Plastic bags can also be a big threat to marine life by being broken up then swallowed, blocking the digestive tracts of the animal, fills the stomach, resulting in malnutrition, starvation and potentially death.

Discarded or lost fishing nets and pots can continue to trap and catch fish even

when they are no longer in use.This is known as ghost fishing and it can

result in the capture of large quantities of marine organisms. Sadly, it has become

a concern with regard to conservation of fish stocks in some areas and has resulted in 

economic losses for fisheries.

Plastic fragments broken down are called plastic pellets that are the most abundant of hard plastics and post a threat to marine life when it lodges in animals throats or digestive system.

Clearly these different types of pollution affect marine life and ecosystems. Hopefully who ever reads this can understand we need to do more to help out our oceans and support marine life!

Wed. 2/27

Benefits of mangroves


Nursery:
The mangroves create a happy nursery for many young fish which provides protection from outside predators. The Red Mangrove for example has roots that diversely stick in the ground creating small spaces made for smaller fish.

Nutrients:
Nutrient conserving processes in mangroves are well developed and include evergreeness, resorption of nutrients prior to leaf fall and the immobilization of nutrients in leaf litter during decomposition.  It provides detritus for sea grass also.

Sediment: 
The sediment benefits from the mangroves creating a stabler surface. And sometimes it creates a sediment plume which filter and trap dirt as it flows, this filter toxins from the water before it enters the sea.

Toxins:
As said before, the toxins are filtered by the mangroves from the sediment before it enters the sea.  

Buffer system:
The mangroves are also beneficial to wildlife and the residents living behind it because when tropical storms hit or hurricanes strike, they serve as a buffer and take the hard blow of the storm protecting what's behind it.


Ecosystem corridor:  
The mangrove provides an ecosystem by protecting smaller fish to grow and therefore helping fishing industries to catch the big fish as they get older.  

Tues. 2/26

Mangrove adaptations(5)!

1.The red mangrove has developed an adaptation in very unstable soil to develop roots that branch out and prop itself up and stabilize the tree.
2.This type also excludes salts at their roots surface by their leaves extracting salt too.

3. The Black Mangrove has roots that extend upward from the soil that get more oxygen and exchange gases.

4. Both black and white mangroves utilize salt excretion as a balancing mechanism.
5. The black mangrove flowers open at night for bats to feed on its nectar.

Monday 2/25

Otter!!
Common name: Sea Otter
Scientific names: Lutrinae
Habitat: They are found on all different continents except for Austrailia and Antartica. They are found no more than 100 meters away from the water.

Reproduction: The otter becomes sexually mature in their second or third year, most don't successfully reproduct until the age of five or seven. The reproduction cycle of the sea otter is about 12 months, if the pup does not survive the mother may have postpartum estrus.

Prey: An otters diet consists of crayfishes, crabs, and other aquatic invertebrates; fishes; and frogs.  Giant otters mainly eat fishes and crabs. Others may feed on mulluskes, clams, mussels and snails.

Interesting facts:
1.) The male otters are often called meoweaters, females are called queens.
2.)They are the only species that doesn't have a mussle in the tail.
3.)They have the ability to create and use tools.

Friday 2/22

Mangroves

There are three types of mangroves, the Black Mangrove, the Red Mangrove, and the White Mangrove.

The black mangrove has specialized tubular roots that take in oxygen.  They stick straight up from out of the ground and these bristles are known as pneumatophores.  This is probably the most tolerant of salty conditions.
 Benefits (organism): Provides a breeding, nursery, and a feeding zone for the environment.
Benefits (humans): Used for fishing poles, charcoal, and honey from the mango blossoms.

The Red Mangrove is more tree like that have an aerial root system which stabilizes the trees.  The roots also contain a waxy substance to keep the salt out because their not tolerant of it.
Benefits (organisms): It applies to young fish that hide in the mangroves from bigger predators.
Benefits (humans): Takes the impact of storms and lessens it, also prevents sediment erosion also helps the fishing industry by keeping the young fish alive until they are big so humans can eat them.

The White Mangroves are the shortest of the mangroves and have un-buttressed roots.  The leaves have adapted from the salty environment by developing special glands that allow salt to pass from the inside the tree to the outside.
Benefit (organisms): Many insects eat the sugars extracted from the leaves.
Benefits (humans): Used for wood for fences, tools, and fishing poles.

Thurs. 2/21

Ocean Garbage Patch

The ocean garbage patch is found in the pacific ocean that is a a gyre of marine debris located roughly between 135 degrees W to 155 degrees W and 35 degrees N and 42 degrees N.  It has high concentrations of pelagic plastics, chemical sludge and other debris.  All of this comes 80 % of land-based pollution  and 20 % of pollution from ships.  Some of these plastics end up in stomachs of birds and animals, including sea turtles, and albatrosses.  Many of the birds young dies because of the plastic being fed to it from the mother. Toxic chemicals are also eaten by many other marine creatures witch in turn are eaten by a larger predator.  Then some fish that we eat might also have these chemicals, so therefore it affects humans too.  The ways humans can fight off this garbage patch is creating organizations of clean ups and get lots of people to help.  And also to promote the idea of cleanup and to let people understand what littering does.

Wed. 2/20

Reptiles - Marine Iguana 
Scientific name: Amblyrhynchus cristatus
Sometimes called: Galápagos marine iguana
Marine iguanas are found in of course, the Galapagos Islands, but can also be found on the rocky shores, mangroves, or beaches.   These are the worlds only marine lizards. They can dive up to 50 feet and stay under water for about 40 minutes.  The have evolved blunt noses to help them feed on seaweed, a strong tale for swimming, and powerful limbs with strong claws to help them cling to rocks.  They also have a specific nasal gland that allows them to spew out salt from their system.  This animal is not endangered, however, they do face threats.  Things like predators such as hawks, cats, and dogs affect them. But mainly El Nino changing the coastal environment and depleting their food sources, causes the death of marine Iguanas by 50 percent.

http://www.arkive.org/galapagos-marine-iguana/amblyrhynchus-cristatus/

I chose this animal because I watched a special on the TV on the Galapagos islands recently and thought these marine iguanas were very interesting creatures.

Tues. 2/19

Ocean Acidification is when carbon dioxide is absorbed into ocean water and the ocean becomes very acidic.  When the ocean gets more acidic, the balance of molecules needed for organisms that have shells and skeletons is altered.  This causes the shells to of some sea creatures to dissolve or skeletons to be harder to create.  Animals like crabs, sea stars, plankton, and sea urchins etc. are impaired with ocean acidificaiton. When these animals suffer so do the creatures that eat them affecting the entire food web.  Humans are a huge contribution to ocean acidification from cars to factories making the CO2 in the air more abundant.  We can help by cutting back on how much we drive cars or putting limits on states to how long you can run factories maybe.
Three things I've learned
1. I had no idea that ocean could absorb carbon dioxide, I thought polluting the ocean just meant oil spills or something.
2.Our ocean is more acidic now then any point in history.
3. This will also affect our ecosystem by making it harder to find fish when fishing if the acidity becomes worse

.

Friday 2/15

Karenia Brevis is a toxic dinoflagellate which has a significant role in producing harmful algae blooms or "red tides" like in places such as the Gulf of Mexico and the coast of Florida.  Karenia Brevis is a microscopic, single celled organism that each cell has two flagella that allow it to move through water in a spinning motion. It produces potent neurotoxins collectively called brevetoxins, which cause neurological problems in other organisms, responsible for many die-off marine animals.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karenia_brevis (only website containing it's characteristics that i could find.)


Neurotoxic Shellfish Poisoning is a condition caused by ingestion of brevetoxin, a neurotoxin which is given off by certain dinoflagellates.  Most of the brevetoxin is generated by Kerenia Brevis.  The Neurotoxic Shellfish Poisoning symptoms found in humans usually appear within one to three hours.  The person may feel tingling, numbingness and intestinal distress as the body processes the toxin.  Death would be normally rare.
  http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-neurotoxic-shellfish-poisoning.htm  However, when marine animals are exposed to this toxin there are more sufficient deaths or it can cause the creature to be confused or mentally ill. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amnesic_shellfish_poisoning#Possible_animal_effects This effects the Gulf coast economy by affecting what sea food is produced and eaten that could be poisonous.  Therefore it would slow the economy tremendously if this were to occur often.

Thurs. 2/14

5.) Plankton like phytoplankton rely on the sun for photosynthesis, the other type, zooplankton, feed on phytoplankton.

Five things we have learned about Plankton.

1.) Plankton makes up half of the worlds oxygen today.

2.)Plankton are divided into two distinct types:
- Phytoplankton: That are algae that live near the waters surface where there's sunlight to support photosynthesis.
- Zooplankton: Includes animals like crustaceans, jelly fish, and other animals that feed on plankton. Also eggs of larger animals are in this category.


3.) Plankton is large marine animal's main food source.  If plankton were to go extinct it would effect the entire food web and including our oxygen source.

4.) Plankton is the most abundant creature, besides bacteria, in the ocean.


5. Zooplankton is the smallest creature in the ocean. It's length ranges from one-tenth of a millimeter to four millimeters.

Wednesday 2/13

Killer Whale

The killer whale is one of the top predators of the sea.  It's scientific name is the Orcinus Orca. Their habitat is normally in all open oceans but most abundant in coastal areas and even more abundant in the Arctic and Antarctic Ocean.  Females become sexually mature around 15 years of age and males 15 to 21.  Many males become aggressive when trying to win females over, when they do the females will have one pup every  five years in what is called a Polyestrous cycle.  Killer Whales are the world's largest distributed cetacean species in the world.
3 Interesting Facts:
1.) They can grow up to as large as a school bus.
2.) They have 40-50 teeth that are up to four or five inches long.
3.) They live in families called "pods" with up to 40 other Killer Whales.
http://voices.yahoo.com/20-interesting-facts-killer-whales-5554625.html, http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/species/mammals/cetaceans/killerwhale.htm
The problems that face Killer Whales are declining fish populations such as Salmon that are 90% of an Orcas diet (Salmon are over fished and losing their habitats), toxic exposure from human pollution, and surface impact (ships colliding with the Orcas and polluting the sea with exhaust).
Lastly, I chose the Killer Whale because I think they're fierce but beautiful creatures and wanted to learn more about them.
http://www.whalemuseum.org/education/library/issues.html

Tuesday 2/12

Spotted Eagle Ray (replaces plankton race) 

I chose this animal to talk about because I think their spots are pretty and I wanted to learn more about there life style and what they eat.
Originally called Aetobatus Narinari, the Spotted Eagle Ray can grow up to at least 16 feet depending on their age. They're also named bonnet ray, duckbill, bonnet skate, and duckbill ray. The eagle rays feed mainly on bivalves but also eat shrimp, crabs, octopus, and worms, whelks and small fishes.(http://marinebio.org/species.asp?id=58) These creatures also stay near coastal areas and reefs or bays and have predators like the hammer head shark, Bull Shark, Tiger Shark, and the Silver Tip Shark. At sea beds, eagle rays bury themselves in the sand because their spiracles and eyes help them to breath and see in such conditions. http://www.animalplace.net/fishes/spotted-eagle-ray-facts-characteristics-habitat-and-more/