Garrett's+Journal

LILY POND 

GPS Coordinates- 21°18'10.84" N 157°49'46.19" W

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 __Assigned Journal #1 __ 

Heyy. Well, it's my first visit to the Lily Pond, and it's pretty simple. All we did was take jobs and make very simple observations. Here's what I saw.......

**Animal Life... **  1. Many types of fish. -Lots of different schools of fish. -Large Schools of tiny fishes many of which are located near the cement island on the farther side of the pond -Koi are about 1-3 feet long and can range in colors. -The tiny fish only swim in packs and when disturbed, they scramble away together. They never scatter. 2. Birds -Some were resting on the lily pads -Others were there to drink the water or do other things 3. The occasional turtle -Very rare to spot -Can be located on the island of the pond walking, eating, resting, etc, or swimming in the pond with all the other organisms -Not a good amount of them in the pond

**Plants... **   -Some have holes in them, or in other words, probably human or fish disturbed. -Located close to one specific spot in the pond -Very weight resistant, can withhold the weight of my phone  -Don't seem to affect the lifestyle of the lily pads they're growing on.
 * Tons of lily pads (hence the name, Lily Pond.)
 * Some Flowers growing on the pads

**Abiotic Factors **  <span style="background-color: rgb(247, 247, 253);"> -Probably from some unfiltered water, rain, rocks, dirt and grass that drop in uninvitingly and pollute the water <span style="background-color: rgb(247, 247, 253);"> -Yet to test what it is or how it affects the way the organisms live. <span style="background-color: rgb(247, 247, 253);"> -Again, yet to test what it is or how it affects the lifestyle of the organisms
 * <span style="background-color: rgb(247, 247, 253);">Very dark, murky water water.
 * <span style="background-color: rgb(247, 247, 253);">All the dirt, rocks, and grass that drop in and sink to the bottom of the pond
 * <span style="background-color: rgb(247, 247, 253);">Water Temp.
 * <span style="background-color: rgb(247, 247, 253);">Air and perimeter ground temp.

__<span style="background-color: rgb(247, 247, 253);">Free Journal #1 __ <span style="background-color: rgb(247, 247, 253);">

Today was our first day of studying at our site, the Punahou Lily Pond. I believe that this will be a good place to study the ecosystem because it's easy to access directly, whether out of school or on break since none of the rest of our group doesn't live anywhere near each other, and there's a good variety of plants, animals, abiotic factors, and many other things to research. I was assigned along with Nick to study a good chunk of the abiotic factors, while Nick does about the other half the research on it.

Today we took basic research and obvious observations about our location and found that there were many different types of plant and animal species within the confines of the Lily Pond. There was a good amount of each, and it should be easy to organize and figure out what's actually going on in our dear Lily Pond every day. The niches of some of the plants and animals are as follows...

**<span style="background-color: rgb(247, 247, 253);">The basic Niches... ** <span style="background-color: rgb(247, 247, 253);">

<span style="background-color: rgb(247, 247, 253);">The fish... <span style="background-color: rgb(247, 247, 253);"> After my first visit to see the many varieties of fish here, I believe that the main role of the fishes are to just be fishes. There's absolutely no possible predators here (I think..), but I'm not sure how the population doesn't grow to an extreme amount otherwise. That's a question I'll save for next time...

<span style="background-color: rgb(247, 247, 253);">The Lilies... <span style="background-color: rgb(247, 247, 253);"> Ok...the only obvious plant life I can see is the Lily Pads, which everyone should know about by now, if your reading the location we're studying. But I think the main niche of the Lily Pads are to provide minor shade to the fishes and get some of them out of the heat. I'll find some way to experiment on that later...

__<span style="background-color: rgb(247, 247, 253);">Assigned Journal #2 __ <span style="background-color: rgb(247, 247, 253);">

I've already compiled a whole bunch of questions and possible experiments for this environment. If you can look through my journals closely you can find them within my writing. Here are most of them...

-Why don't the tinier fishes ever leave the pack? -What is the effect of the water temperature on the lifestyle of the organisms within the pond? -How do air temperature and moisture affect the way the organisms around it live? -How would cleaning the water make a difference on the way they live? -What do the organisms diets consists of? -Do the flowers affect the way the lily pads live? -What kind of predators are there to control the fish population? -If there aren't any, what keeps the fish population in check? -Why are the lily pads there in the first place? What is their main job in the ecosystem?

__<span style="background-color: rgb(247, 247, 253);">Free Journal #2 __ <span style="background-color: rgb(247, 247, 253);">

I'm back!!! Well, it's round 2 at the Lily Pond for my group, and I've been finding some tiny details to the pond that I actually didn't see last time... <span style="background-color: rgb(247, 247, 253);">
 * <span style="background-color: rgb(247, 247, 253);">There are some flowers growing on some of the Pads...
 * <span style="background-color: rgb(247, 247, 253);">I can see some birds and animals on the pads either just chilling or drinking water or something else.
 * <span style="background-color: rgb(247, 247, 253);">More varieties of Koi fish, such as color, size, and shape variations.
 * <span style="background-color: rgb(247, 247, 253);">More turtles than I saw last time.

An example of a community interaction that I can see within this environment is commensalism. This interaction seems to be affecting some of the Lily Pads. There are some nice flowers growing on the pads that don't really seem to affect the way the Lily Pads act or behave differently from the pads that don't have flowers on them. The effects caused by this relationship is that the flower has a place to live and grow in peace, while the pads seem unaffected or possibly unaware of the growing flowers. We should find a way to test this relationship out soon. We'll see...

<span style="background-color: rgb(247, 247, 253);"> __<span style="background-color: rgb(247, 247, 253);">Assigned Journal #3 __ <span style="background-color: rgb(247, 247, 253);">

Natural selection happens everywhere, including right here at the Lily Pond. Random organisms will die while some live, and the ones that are best adapted to their environment will have a better chance of surviving in their ecosystem. One thing that could be causing the natural selection in this area should be mainly predator-prey relationships. Well, I think. All the fish in the pond need to eat, and smaller fish I'm thinking would be an ideal diet for the koi and other large fish. It also follows Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection because there is variation, and the weaker fish I'm thinking are getting eaten more, and that way the fish that survive pass on heritable traits and make their offspring more and more suited to their environment.

<span style="background-color: rgb(247, 247, 253);"> __<span style="background-color: rgb(247, 247, 253);">Free Journal #3 __<span style="background-color: rgb(247, 247, 253);"> <span style="background-color: rgb(247, 247, 253);"> A third visit to the Lily Pond didn't find too many different changes or new observations for me, but there were some minor things that I might not have noticed last time. This includes a lot more black, mini-koi looking fish, and I saw the turtles a bit more often this time. But other than that, it was the usual day for the fish, the algae, and it's environment. Last time I came here, I made a couple questions that maybe could be answered. So based on my observations, I proposed some possible theories and inferences that could be the reason for what's going on in the given situation. <span style="background-color: rgb(247, 247, 253);"> <span style="background-color: rgb(247, 247, 253);"> <span style="background-color: rgb(247, 247, 253);"> **<span style="background-color: rgb(247, 247, 253);">Question: Why don't tinier fish ever leave their schools? ** <span style="background-color: rgb(247, 247, 253);"> <span style="background-color: rgb(247, 247, 253);"> <span style="background-color: rgb(247, 247, 253);">Inference: Possibly because they're easier targets as food to the bigger fish when alone and they're working together to keep each other safe.

<span style="background-color: rgb(247, 247, 253);"> **<span style="background-color: rgb(247, 247, 253);">Question: Why are the lily pads there in the first place? What is their niche in the environment? **<span style="background-color: rgb(247, 247, 253);"> <span style="background-color: rgb(247, 247, 253);"> <span style="background-color: rgb(247, 247, 253);">Inference: A possible niche they have in the environment would be to provide shade to the fish and turtles, and possibly even serve as food for <span style="background-color: rgb(247, 247, 253);">  <span style="background-color: rgb(247, 247, 253);">the tinier organisms and bacteria.

<span style="background-color: rgb(247, 247, 253);"> **<span style="background-color: rgb(247, 247, 253);">Question: What kind of predators are there to keep the fish population in check? If there aren't any, what does? **<span style="background-color: rgb(247, 247, 253);"> <span style="background-color: rgb(247, 247, 253);"> <span style="background-color: rgb(247, 247, 253);">Inference: I believe that the bigger fish eat the other, smaller fish. That's the only reason I can think of that would give the fish reason to die <span style="background-color: rgb(247, 247, 253);"> <span style="background-color: rgb(247, 247, 253);">out.

While at the pond, I was also asked to create three possible, testable experiment hypotheses, one of which I will actually perform to find a bit more info about how the fish and everything around it live.

<span style="background-color: rgb(247, 247, 253);"> **<span style="background-color: rgb(247, 247, 253);">1. **<span style="background-color: rgb(247, 247, 253);"> If I took two fish and made one live in cooler water and one live in warmer water, then the fish in the warm water would live better because it would <span style="background-color: rgb(247, 247, 253);"> <span style="background-color: rgb(247, 247, 253);">be used to heated water(the sun heats the Lily pond naturally and heats it up) while the other fish would not be used to the colder temperature.

<span style="background-color: rgb(247, 247, 253);"> **<span style="background-color: rgb(247, 247, 253);">2 **<span style="background-color: rgb(247, 247, 253);">. If I took two fish and made one live in dirtier water and one live in cleaner water, then the dirtier fish I think would live better because it'd be more <span style="background-color: rgb(247, 247, 253);"> <span style="background-color: rgb(247, 247, 253);">used to the conditions than the fish that lived in the cleaner water.

<span style="background-color: rgb(247, 247, 253);"> **<span style="background-color: rgb(247, 247, 253);">3. **<span style="background-color: rgb(247, 247, 253);"> If I took two sections of the Lily Pond, complete with plant life, animals, and micro-organisms, and blocked off one to all sunlight for a set period of <span style="background-color: rgb(247, 247, 253);"> <span style="background-color: rgb(247, 247, 253);">time, the one with sunlight would thrive more because if the fish eats the algae, and it grows off photosynthesis, which is fueled by sunlight, the algae <span style="background-color: rgb(247, 247, 253);">  <span style="background-color: rgb(247, 247, 253);">would stop growing, and the fish would have nothing to eat, so the ecosystem wouldn't work out. <span style="background-color: rgb(247, 247, 253);"> <span style="background-color: rgb(247, 247, 253);"> __<span style="background-color: rgb(247, 247, 253);">Assigned Journal # 4 __ The carbon cycle in the Lily Pond ecosystem can be very complicated to some people, or for people like me, you can see it from a simpler point of view.

> > For a more visual person, the diagram for t h e same cycle is here...
 * The algae will give off O2 in photosynthesis and the oxygen will either get taken in by the fish and turtles or it will remain in the atmosphere and water
 * If the fish and turtles take in the O2, they will give off CO2 as part of cellular respiration. At that point, the CO2 will either get taken in by the plants or remain in the atmosphere and water
 * If the algae take in the CO2, they will produce O2 as part of photosynthesis again and the cycle will restart again.

__Free Journal #4__ So far, after completing my last visit, I can sadly say that I did not find any new species. Although lately, its been raining hard lately, so the pond has been darker/murkier than usual. And because I spent less time taking observations, I spent a lot more time performing my experiment. I wanted to find out how the dirtiness of the water affected the life of the fish. It took more than one visit to complete, but I did it and here's how i proceeded to perform the experiment. <span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Comic Sans MS";"> 1. Fill one jar or fish tank with clean water close to the top. <span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Comic Sans MS";"> 2. Fill the other jar or fish tank with water from the Lily Pond close to the top. <span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Comic Sans MS";"> 3. Fill both tanks with reasonable amounts of algae. <span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Comic Sans MS";"> 4. Use the fishing net to catch two similar fish from the Lily Pond. <span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Comic Sans MS";"> 5. Put one fish in one jar and put the other fish in the other jar. <span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Comic Sans MS";"> 6. Close the lid on both of the tanks and seal it completely with saran wrap. <span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Comic Sans MS";"> 7. Be sure during this experiment that the tanks are never in darkness and always in some sort of light, whether artificial or natural. Record every 24 hours for 72 hours on the turbidity and cleanliness of the tank, 1 being the best smelling or cleanest, to 5 being the worst smelling or dirtiest. 9. Also when you are taking this data, take scientific inferences as to how the fish appear to be looking. You can measure this any way you want, either by just writing down how they look or creating another scale. Ex, 1-5. 1 being extremely healthy, 5 being dead. 10. After three days worth of data, deposit the fish back in a safe area (if they’re still alive of course), rinse out the water, clean up   your station, and organize your data.