Marine Biology has been an interesting course during this last semester of my high school career. The class, which i would say is dismissed as a study hall by most, held my attention thoroughly. At the beginning of the quarter i had actually just been accepted to URI to study Marine Biology, and i was very interested on how i would enjoy this class. Because of this class i decided not to study marine biology in college mainly because i couldn't see myself doing so, but i still hold marine affairs and biology in the highest regard and hope to eventually work in some field that allows me to work with the ocean.
 This final conservation project probably push me to change my major. I proposed an issue that turned out to be incorrect, and i found that there was little information on the specific topic i had chosen. Overall this last project has been a huge pain in my ass, and I'm glad I'm done with it.
 I would like to say thank you to Mrs. Goodrich for being a relaxed and intelligent teacher who actually enjoys what she teaches.

Field Trip the New England Aquarium    http://www.neaq.org

On Wednesday we visited the New England Aquarium in Boston. Once we arrived, we began looking at all the exhibits and tanks throughout the Aquarium. I saw tanks simulating tropical reefs, mangrove swamps, the ocean floor, and local habitats. WE also witnessed fur seal and sea lion training as well as a feeding in the large tank. Being able to see all of the amazing and wonderful creatures swimming around was nice, but nothing compared to being able to touch and basically pet sharks and rays in the touch tank.
 
Having rays glide right underneath your hand is an amazing feeling, and to be able to gently touch a 3 foot shark was probably the highlight of my week.

Geologic Timeline Activity

Geologic Timeline Activity

During our project concerning the biological, geologic timeline of Earth, I learned a lot about the specific life and conditions of the Jurassic period. However, i would argue that the skills i learned from creating the timeline far out weighed the pure knowledge i gained from researching.
   My contribution to the group fell under more of an artistic sense rather than a strictly scholastic. I helped by forming our clay fossil, drawing the background of our piece timeline, tracing and coloring our dinosaurs, and organized our part of the timeline.
   During the presentations, i gained a lot more respect, understanding, and admiration for the other time periods on the timeline. I had known only a little bit about the other periods prior to the presentations, and can now say that i have a solid understanding of what the conditions of each period were like.
  I think that the only thing my group could have done better was to present. We did not prepare at all and during our presentation i realized i had been reading the wrong card on our timeline. Unfortunately, i could not keep myself together basically ruined our entire presentation.  
     

Plankton Decline, Readings and Analysis 

In class yesterday, i read three articles on the slow loss of diatoms in the world's oceans. Through satellites and sampling, scientist were able to determine that plankton are on the decline, by 1 percent per year. 

The first image is a satellite picture of plankton. The second is a graph displaying the consequences of the loss of plankton. "If the trend continues, it could decimate ocean food chains and accelerate global warming." (Kristen Minogue). In the past (2010) it has been thought that in order to observe and tally phytoplankton, satellites were the only method needed. But, recent research (2013) has shown that satellites could have missed 50% of the plankton in the seas, and a combination of methods are necessary.     

 

The reason for the decline in plankton is warming oceans, "We found that temperature plays a critical role in driving the cycling of chemicals in marine micro-algae. it affects these reactions as much as nutrients and light, which was not known before." (Climate News Network, 2013)

 

The loss of plankton in the world's oceans is a serious issue that, unless addressed, could have disastrous affects on human life.  

 

 

 

 

Relationships Among Marine Organisms

Marine Food Web
In marine biology this week our class made a small, marine ecosystem food web. Each member of the class was assigned a organism in the web to represent and held string  that linked them to their prey and predators and thus created a web. I was the benthic fish, a primary consumer, which eats clams and is eaten by birds. If the benthic fish were to be taking out of the food web, the population of clams would increase and the population of birds would decrease, the marine ecosystem as a whole would suffer.

Phytoplankton
A.) Phytoplankton are so important to the marine food web because is the most base of all life in the sea. All of the organisms in the sea, large and small, survive because of the plankton either directly or indirectly. Phytoplankton cover such a large amount of the ocean in a millimeter thick stream. B) Through our lab we found that dead diatoms make up diatomaceous earth, and can be used in toothpaste, filters, reflective paint and pesticides.

Energy Flow
In order for an ecosystem to survive, there needs to be a flow of energy between the organisms. The plankton are eaten by some other organism which is eaten by another organism. The energy flow is just the flow of organisms through the trophic levels. For example plankton is eaten by krill which is eaten by penguins which is eaten by a seal which is eaten by a killer whale.

Human Impacts
Humans only disrupt the natural marine food web. We as humans disrupt the ecosystem for the most part because of pollution, over fishing and wasteful methods of catching fish , like drag netting. Over fishing, pollution and by-catch severely upset the balance of ecosystems and oceans as a whole.