Sharks

In Class today we watched 5 clips on sharks and answered many questions on the clips.

I know that sharks can be dangerous and they are predators of the ocean but I now see that they are not just there to attack fish and humans. I would like to know more about how the fishing industries are affecting the sharks population.

“Collapse of sharks”
This clip is probably the one that really had me thinking a lot because I am a fisherman and I never really thought about how bad some other fisher men can be. This can be helpful because it is probably the biggest reason why sharks are becoming extinct today. From this video I learned that Sharks are becoming extinct due to this kind of fishing and it is Inhumane of us to be fishing in such a way. It isn't an enjoyable video but it is definitely something that you would want to learn more about.



 

10 Weird-Surprising-and Unusual facts about Sea Stars

Phylum: Echinodermata (In Latin means Spiny Skin)
1. Their eyes are on the tips of their legs and sense black and white.
2. Their anus is on the top side.
3. They push their stomach out their mouth to eat.
4. They have two stomachs.
5. They are not considered a fish even though they are most known as Starfish
6. They can regrow legs if they loose them.
7. You can only tell if they are boy or girl by dissecting it.
8. They have an exoskeleton.
9. There are Sea Stars with more than 5 arms.
10. They use water as a hydraulic system to move their legs and therefore move their bodies.

Mollusk Analysis

A morphological feature in Mollusks are their soft bodies. Every animal in the mollusk family is a soft body. Mollusks are squid, snails, octopus, etc. Since the mollusks have a soft body it means that they are more fragile and they will have trouble supporting their bodies in terrestrial environments. The phylum mollusca is divided into 5 classes, pelecypods, include oysters, clams, muscles. Gastropods include, snails, sea slugs. Cephalopods includes squid octopus. Scaphopods include tooth shells.  Polyplacophora include chitons. 
In the mollusks we dissected, there was not many similar features between the clam and the squid. the clam had a really hard shell and made it hard for us to rip open. the squid was soft and squishy and it was easy to cut open. the inside of the clam was just a bunch of body parts packed into a small area. The squid's body parts were nicely spread for us to examine. 
The mantle on the clam was there to help protect itself from predators. It also kept everything in place inside the shell. The clam uses its foot to move itself place to place and bury itself. the squid uses water as a jet to move itself. 
The squids and octopuses have camouflage features to protect themselves from predators and gastropods have hard shells. The squids use camouflage so a predator wont eat them. 
The feeding methods of clams is filtering water and getting the food from the water, and the snails eat from the surface they are on to eat things. 
Humans and mollusks have similar body parts, they just look different. We both have hearts, reproduction organs, and we both have ways to breath. 
Mussels have a special adaption to surviving strong wave action and its by using their foot to dig into the ground and hang on for dear life.
Octopus are considered to be very intelligent because of their significant abilities. They have good navigation abilities, and very good predatory techniques. 
There are many examples why mollusks are important to the ecological and economic feature. They are obviously a good food source for people and other sea animals. They are good for cleaning the water around them as well.  

New England Aquarium

    On march 31st, our Marine Biology class went to the New England aquarium in Boston. There was a lot of interesting and cool sea animals there.

    The Animals that were at the aquarium all behaved in different ways. I bet they would act different in nature but this was probably as close as it gets to how they act in the wild. The people working there try to keep it as real as possible for the animals there. The Penguins were rather calm and they just swam around or relaxed on the rocks. The only different thing that happened is when two Penguins began to mate on the rocks. It was pretty amusing. The fish in the aquarium acted just like how they would in a fish take. They just swam around and ate what the employees gave them.

   In Marine Biology and at the Aquarium, I learned about how important Marine conservation is. It is sad that buildings an homes are made on top of where fish use to hide and since we build things along beaches, we are killing many species of marine life. Mangroves are roots and vines that small fish hide in  when they feel they are being attacked or frightened and they are key for a fish survival. Small fish use them because a big fish cannot swim through the congested  space the mangroves make. Coral are also important to leave in the ocean because they work like mangroves. They are good for small fish to hide in.


http://www.neaq.org/animals_and_exhibits/index.php













This field trip enhanced my learning because I didn't just hear about the wild life, I saw it all happen in front of me and watched the sea animals in their environment.

Ocean Seaweed

http://oceanlink.info/biodiversity/seaweeds/seaweeds.html

        Seaweed is a Algae, which means it is in the Protista kingdom. This means that seaweed is neither plants or animals. Seaweed is not listed with plants because seaweed does not have the same features as plants or animals. A seaweed have four mains parts of its structure. the hold-fast is the roots of the seaweed that holds it planted into the ground. If the hold-fasts werent there, then seaweed would be floating everywhere. The stipe is a term they use for the stem, or stalk of the seaweed. The stipe supports the seaweed and it can be stiff, gas filled, flexible, long, short, or not there at all. There are leaves on a seaweed but the correct name for it is the Blades. The blades work as leaves though. They are used for photosynthesis, and reproduction use. The final part of a seaweed is the Float. The float is a gas filled bubble in the seaweed that is used to help the photosynthesis factor. 

        Why are seaweed important in an ecological role? Its because seaweed is used for photosynthesis and it is a food source. They even work as a home for some species of marine animals. Even though they are important in the ecological factor, they also encounter ecological stress. Stress involved, the seaweed drying up from low water levels, and 
 weather conditions. Cold conditions can freeze seaweed. Seaweed can be sexually reproductive by male and female cells joining. These cells are called gametes. Seaweed can be asexually produced but a fragment of the seaweed breaking off but continue to live on to become a whole new seaweed. 

          Seaweed are characterized under 3 groups. The green algae, the brown algae, and the red algae. These are different types of seaweed but they all work in the same ways. 

         There are human benefits from seaweed. Seaweed is an edible substance and the Japenese has used it. Seaweed can be used for medicinal reasons like treating burns. Seaweeds also has many cancer fighting agents that will hopefully in the future fight off cancer. They are also used in tooth paste and other things.
         

“Red seaweed Chondrus crispus, photo from The Seaweed Site” 

“Green seaweed Ulva lactuca, photo from The Seaweed Site” 

Himanthalia_buttons.png 

PHOTOSYNTHESIS OF SEAWEED

In class we did a lab that involved using pine sticks that still had green points, beakers, water, and baking soda. We put the little stick of pine in a glass tube and we filled it with water. We then filled the beaker with water and put a pinch of baking soda in. Then we quickly tipped the tube of water with the pine inside upside down, not letting much water out, and turned on a light below it. As it sat in the water and light, bubbles formed on the pine needles of the pine stick and the bubble rose because photosynthesis was in action. 

Sources

http://oceanlink.info/biodiversity/seaweeds/seaweeds.html 

http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/seaweed.html

http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/seaweed.html  

“For most of history, man has had to fight nature to survive; in this century he is beginning to realize that, in order to survive, he must protect it.” ― Jacques-Yves Cousteau 

Deep Sea Lights

What deep-sea organisms are capable of bioluminescence, and how does this ability benefit these organisms?

           Biolumiscence is a reaction that causes organisms to light up after being disturbed, or being 

attacked in general. There are different kinds of Biolumiscence  that both living organisms have on land and 

sea. Some minerals also have a phosphorescence which is a light up for rocks. Deep sea animals use this 

bioluminescence for self defense. The light will confuse whatever predator is attacking. 

The picture above is a lantern fish. It is also the same fish from "Finding Nemo" that was attacking Marlin and 

Dory when they dropped the goggles into the deep ocean. This fish uses Bioluminescence as a night light so 

they can see their prey and their predators. 


http://www.seasky.org/deep-sea/biolumiscence.html 

Food Web

     In class today we went over food chains and what eats what. Mrs Goodrich assigned us all a specific ocean organism like killer whale, penguin, Anchovy etc. I was assigned an Anchovy. An anchovy is one of the most eaten organism in the food web. We used a roll of yarn to make the web and I was holing a lot of strings because anchovy eaten by a lot of other sea animals. In terms of a tropic level, an anchovy is at the bottom of the triangle because anchovies are very small and just about anything could eat it.
 
An anchovy would be a primary consumer on the Trophic pyramid.