The Project
For this project, our goal was to create an action plan to try and save an endangered species by preserving its ecosystem.
The Indochinese tigers are the top predators in the Greater Mekong ecosystem. Due to deforestation, which has been mainly caused by human impacts, species lower on the food chain are dying. This is creating a ripple effect that is critically harming the tigers' food source, causing them to die off due to starvation.
Biology
Ecology is the study of how organisms interact with both other organisms and their environment. Biologists use the organization of ecology to sort different groups of organisms. An individual is a single organism. Individuals come together to form populations, which are groups of individuals of the same species in the same area. A community is a set of populations in a given area. When communities interact with the abiotic factors of their environment, they form an ecosystem. Groups of contiguous ecosystems with similar climate and species are called biomes. The biomes form the biosphere, the area of Earth where all life exists. In our project, we aimed to save the population of tigers in the Greater Mekong ecosystem.
A common way to organize an ecosystem is with a food web. Food webs use arrows to denote the flow of energy within an ecosystem. Every ecosystem is divided into trophic levels. The lowest level is the producers. Producers are autotrophs, which means they can make their own food. This is done during photosynthesis, in which the chloroplasts in the organism's cells use sunlight to convert carbon dioxide into glucose (6CO2+6H2O+light→C6H12O6+6O2). The producers are then eaten by the first level consumers, who are then eaten by the second level consumers, and so on, until the energy reaches the top consumers. As a general rule, about ten percent of the total energy in one trophic level flows up to the next. Decomposers, such as mushrooms, break down organisms from all trophic levels and redistribute their energy throughout the ecosystem. To use the energy, organisms break down glucose using cellular respiration to create adenine triphosphate (C6H12O6+6O2→6CO2+6H2O).
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The carbon cycle is the set of processes that move carbon (most commonly in the form of carbon dioxide) throughout an ecosystem. The carbon cycles between land, air, and water in its endless journey around the ecosystem. Carbon is released into the atmosphere form sources such as fossil fuels and cellular respiration from both plants and animals. Sinks, such as plants and bodies of water, help to remove carbon from the atmosphere, maintaining a delicate balance. Other nutrients, such as nitrogen, phosphorous, and water are also moved through ecosystems in their own unique cycles.
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Every population has its own habitat. A habitat is the place in an ecosystem where a population or community lives. Every individual has its own niche, the place where it spends most of its time while doing things like hunting. When a habitat is destroyed, the destruction is followed by ecological succession. In primary succession, there is no top soil left over from the previous habitat. The first species to grow in this area is called the pioneer species. In secondary succession, there is still top oil left over, making it easier for plants to grow back. Every habitat has its own climate, which is the average atmospheric conditions over a period of time. Weather, on the other hand, is the atmospheric conditions of a place at a given time.
Population growth can be limited by many factors in a habitat. Some of these factors do not depend on the population density, and are there fore called density independent factors. Natural disasters, for example, are density independent because they will occur no matter how many individuals are in an area. Density dependent factors are things that are affected by the population density. For example, a disease will spread much quicker in a dense population than a sparse one. The amount of individuals a piece of land can support, called the carrying capacity, is also density dependent because there will not be enough resources if the population becomes so dense that it surpasses the land's carrying capacity.
Symbiotic relationships describe what happens when two populations interact with one another. Mutualism refers to an interaction that benefits both populations involved. Competition for resources is detrimental to both populations because they both get less resources. Consumption of others and parasitism are interactions that benefit one population while harming the other. Commensalism is an interaction in which one population benefits, while the other remains unaffected by the interaction. An example of this is the barnacles on a whale's back.
Reflection
This project went very well. One reason for this was that the group communicated well. For example, while some of us were working on the slideshow, the others were working on our action plan. Another reason is that the whole group had excellent work ethic. Everyone was working on the project for nearly the entire class every day.
Although the project went smoothly, there are still some things I need to work on. For one, my time management was not great. We were not able to practice our presentation because we ran out of time. While I have improved, I still need to work on preparing for presentations. I felt that the group as a whole was unprepared to present when we had to go up.
Although the project went smoothly, there are still some things I need to work on. For one, my time management was not great. We were not able to practice our presentation because we ran out of time. While I have improved, I still need to work on preparing for presentations. I felt that the group as a whole was unprepared to present when we had to go up.
I worked on this project with Morgan Boothe, Jacob Richards, and Cais Wang.