Eco-Columns provide a first-hand glimpse of how an ecosystem works through each level. While also allowing an impression into how each organism contributes to the overall health of the ecosystem being simulated in an eco-column. In the eco-column both a closed system and an open system were represented by, the terrestrial column being an open system and the filter chamber being a closed system. Closing off potential contamination of nutrients getting past and biogeochemical cycles being affected. When first building the terrestrial chamber we thought the terrestrial chamber would thrive because of how large our containers really were allowing for more soil to be allotted to the system. The filtration system was a little more difficult to hypothesize about. Other than we gave thought to how the …show more content…
The difference in an ecosystem in nature more organisms will be present throughout and the temperature will not remain a constant. While in the artificial ecosystem certain organisms do not have the problem of a fluctuating temperature the temperature will most likely stay consistent with the room. Plant life was growing exponentially in two of the five plants in the eco-column. Those two dominant plants thrived at the other plants expense not allowing the other plants to start growing. The two plants being dominant was from the fact of where they were placed which was the area giving them access to the most sunlight. With another reason being how the sprinkler system was flawed which ended up being a confounding variable, because their was no accurate way to measure how much water was reasonably going in per day. Overall the terrestrial eco-column was the most successful in terms of stability and sustainability. With most of the focus going towards the first column on a day-to-day
In addition, the data points were quite far apart. Having more intermediate data points would have enabled the scientists to more accurately model the continuous nature of the data with a discontinuous series of points.
We placed elodea plants into three different beakers and labelled them. Since, we are trying to find how temperature can affect the rate of production of carbon dioxide, we had to place them in different temperatures. So, we labelled the first beaker “Elodea heat” and placed it in a water bath that produced sufficient amount of heat. We labelled the second one “Elodea cool” which was placed in an ice bath filled with ice. The next one “Elodea RT” where the elodea was placed under normal room temperature without any interference. And we named the last one “No Elodea” where we placed no elodea in it and kept the beaker in a dark
The purpose of this lab was to discover how diverse the parking lot at Bunker Hill High School could be, by finding out the Shannon Wiener biodiversity index of the parking lot. The parking lot was used because it does not have much immigration and emigration of the cars. Using an actual ecosystem in the wild would be hard to control, what is immigrating and emigrating out of the experiment. The experiment shows how diverse the cars were, and this can show how diverse an actual ecosystem was during that time of the experiment. This then tells that diversity does matters because if everyone had the same kind of car, then no one would be different. However, if the students, faculty, and guests had a variety of cars in the parking lot, which made the experiment more diverse in the parking lot or the community of cars.
When it comes to the observation part of forming the experiment as well as after the experiment was done, a lot of groups observed the same things. The most significant observations were we observed the
affects the ecosystem. The land's incline prevents some areas to receive and maintain a water
For a species to survive and flourish within a given environment, it not only needs to replace itself but also all the other species around it exclusively. Hence, if one species completely replaces another species, the result is a single dominant species, a monoculture (source 2). According to Gause’s law, every species in a given environment occupies different niches for survival. Therefore, two separate species competing for similar resources cannot fundamentally coexist (source Gause). This is known as the competitive exclusion principle. When comparing animal niche’s to that of different autotrophic plants, one can rather easily differentiate adequate ecological niches for the animal species merely based on food-requirements (P.J. Grubb). On the contrary, many autotrophic plants contradict the competitive exclusion principle by sharing similar ecological niches such as sunlight, carbon dioxide, water, and alike mineral nutrients (p.j. grubb).
Purpose: The purpose of this lab is to investigate the various components of different ecosystems in a smaller representation and study the conditions required for the ecosystem’s sustainability as well as the connections between
There is also the potential of human error within this experiment for example finding the meniscus is important to get an accurate amount using the graduated pipettes and burettes. There is a possibility that at one point in the experiment a chemical was measured inaccurately affecting the results. To resolve this, the experiment should have been repeated three times.
Gazzale, L (2007), retrieved January 22, 2007 from University of Phoenix, Main MBA501 week five environmental scanning thread
in order to ascertain how it brought about Earth's thriving ecosystem and how important it
In many parts of the world, ecosystems’ temperatures begin to rise and fall to extreme levels making it very difficult for animals and plants to adapt in time to survive. Climate has never been stable here on Earth. Climate is an important environmental influence on ecosystems. Climate changes the impacts of climate change, and affects ecosystems in a variety of ways. For instance, warming could force species to migrate to higher latitudes or higher elevations where temperatures are more conducive to their survival. Similarly, as sea level rises, saltwater intrusion into a freshwater sys...
Scientists have begun to say that we have to do more to protect our ecosystem, because our very existence is depending upon it. When the ecosystem is not functioning properly the continuation of plant, animal and human life ecosystems would be impossible. Life cycles can not function without ecosystems. The ecosystem provides us with clean air, water, habitats for fish and other services. They also aid in the mod...
Ecosystems can be aquatic or terrestrial. The earth's aquatic ecosystem makes up about 75% of the earth's surface. This aquatic environment is divided into marine and freshwater environments. The earth's earthly ecosystem is mainly made up of forests and deserts, which make up for 25% of the earth's surface. The role or function of an organism in a community is that organism's function. An organism's role is an area picked by that organism based on physical factors such as temperature, light, oxygen and carbon dioxide content and biological factors such as food, competition for resources and predators. This niche provides the organism a place to live in. A habitat remains consistent with an organism's niche as well as provides the organism with a place to reproduce. In this case, organisms may have the same habitat, but different niches.
Biosphere 2 is a supersealed “greenhouse” enclosing an area of 3.15 acres. Exit and entry is through a double airlock. It consists of several different ecosystems within the “greenhouse.” It houses a tropical rainforest, savannah, scrub forest, desert, fresh- and salt-water marshes and a miniocean that even contains a coral reef. This biosphere is inhabited by over 4000 species in all.
The branch of science that deals with how living things, including humans, are related to their surroundings is called ecology . The Earth supports some 5 million species of plants, animals, and microorganisms. These interact and influence their surroundings, forming a vast network of interrelated environmental systems called ecosystems. The arctic tundra is an ecosystem and so is a Brazilian rain forest. The islands of Hawaii are a relatively isolated ecosystem. If left undisturbed, natural environmental systems tend to achieve balance or stability among the various species of plants and animals. Complex ecosystems are able to compensate for changes caused by weather or intrusions from migrating animals and are therefore usually said to be more stable than simple ecosystems. A field of corn has only one dominant species, the corn plant, and is a very simple ecosystem. It is easily destroyed by drought, insects, disease, or overuse. A forest may remain relatively unchanged by weather that would destroy a nearby field of corn, because the forest is characterized by greater diversity of plants and animals. Its complexity gives it stability.