Starfish

Ten Interesting Facts About The Starfish

1) The Starfish actually isn't even a fish, because it does not have bones, so it's actual name is a "Sea Star," but it is commonly known as a "Starfish."

2) Sea stars are in the phlym of the Echinodermata, which means "spiky skin" in Latin, and are classed as Asteroidea.  They are in the same phylum as sea urchins and sand dollars.

3) Sea stars don't have blood, they use a water vascular system.

4) If a sea star loses an arm, they can easily grow the arm back.  If they get chopped up and part of the center gets lost, the center part can regenerate a whole new sea star so that there is two.

5) One can not tell the gender of the sea star by just looking at it and observing it, it must be dissected and the gonads have to be looked at under a microscope to determine if there is a tail or eggs.

6) Sea stars are protected by an armor made of calcium carbonate and it is covered in spikes to protect it from its' predators.

7) The eyespot on the sea star is located on the ends of their tube feet, which they use to walk.

8) The sea star has two stomachs, and they digest on the outside of their body.

9) Sea star are referred to as benthic because they walk on the body of the ocean floor, they do not swim.

10) Sea stars don't just have 5 arms, they can grow up to 40 arms.  It all depends the kind of species.

Mollusk Anaylsis

All week in marine biography, we have been learning about mollusks.  On Wednesday, we dissected a clam. and on Thursday we dissected a squid.  The mollusks have a morphological feature after which the phylum is named.  The word "mollusk" means "soft thing."  Therefore, mollusks have soft bodies which explains the name of the phylum.  Since mollusks have soft bodies, they face biological troubles.  Because of their soft body, they are more fragile.  Along with that, they have more difficulty to support their bodies in terrestrial environments or to fixate to substrates in aquatic habitats.  A lot of mollusk species solve this problem by having a shell to support and protect them, and also to prevent dehydration.  Mollusks are divided into classes.  The five classes are: pelecypods, or bivalves, which includes oysters, clams and mussels.  Gastropods include snails and sea slugs.  Cephalopods include squids and octopuses.  Scaphopods include tooth shells.  And polyplacophora include chitons.  All the animals we dissected in class had a vertical symmetry.  Each animal we dissected down the middle and they all were pretty much the same in their own being.  The clam had a hard but smooth shell that was very hard to open, the inside of it was very gooey and slimy.  The squid was overall squishy and soft and were clearly no bones in it, but there are two parts of it that are hard which was the beak and the pen.  The pen supports the squid and gives it structure but isn't a bone, and the beak is it's mouth, and those are the only two hard spots.

New England Aquarium Field Trip

The marine animals had all different behaviors.  I observed an octopus for a while, and it stayed suctioned to the corner for the tank for a long time and it was sleeping.  When I took a picture of it with flash on, it woke it up and it starting moving and suctioning more tenticles to the glass.  Octopus are very smart animals and they can get out of almost anything, that's why it's hard to keep it in a tank because they will find a way out.  The workers at the aquarium will put a metal box of food in the tank and they will lock the box, and the octopus manages to get the box open.  Another marine animal that I observed were the penguins.  It was mating season at the aquarium so the penguins did a lot of mating.  They also love standing on the rocks and squawking, making loud noises.  They also swim all around and have a lot of fun.  The penguins also get attached very quickly to humans so they try not to touch them.

Marine conservation is a very good thing, because it's tying to save the marine environment.  One way for marine conservation is to not cut down the mangrooves because there are so many marine animals that have habitats surrounding them.  Another way is to not touch the animals because they try to have the aquarium in a wild-like situation as well as they can, so they need the animals to be independent.  One example is that one of the aquarium workers told me that they try not to touch the penguins because one day they're going to try to put them back into the wild in areas where they have become extinct.

http://www.neaq.org/index.php?gclid=Cj0KEQjw0fOoBRDn88Pol8bqhN0BEiQARGVJKms5KWJXGhanq1Uel_KL6sQB7OpdnyJQFG6-h0JrjNgaAukL8P8HAQ

(these are all pictures taken by me)

This field trip enhanced my learning about marine bio.  This was the third time that I have gone to the New England Aquarium, but since it was a school field trip, it was the first time that I actually had to study the animals to be able to write about them, so I had learned more.  It makes me really interested in the marine animals and makes me want to work with them.

Deep Sea Lights

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

Deep-sea organisms that are capable are the Anglerfish, and it uses it to lure prey, and micro organisms use it to signal distress.  Bioluminescence is the production and emission of light by a living animal.  It's a form of chemiuminescence.  It benefits deep sea organisms for many different reasons.  For some creatures, if an animal is in trouble, it will draw attention to them so that another fish can come save them.  Another example is for luring prey in.

The organism I chose is the Anglerfish.  The fish is named for its characteristic mode of predation, where a glow shows from the head to lure other fish in.  They are members of the Lophiiformes.  The Angler fish might possibly be the ugliest creature on the planet.  There are more than 200 species of Angler Fish, and they live in the murky depths of the Atlantic and Antarctic Oceans.  Only females wear a piece of dorsal spine that protrudes above their mouths like a fishing pole.  The lure is of luminescences.  The Angler Fish uses its bioluminescences to lure in other fish as prey so that it can survive.

Marine Ecosystems: Energy Flow

In the food chain, I was the Beleen Whale.  The Beleen Whale eats krill and Copepods, and the Phytoplankton is at the bottom of the food chain as a producer.  The trophic levels start with the producers, then the primary, secondary, tertiary, and then quaternary.  As the trophic levels go up, the energy decreases by 10%.  Biomagnification occurs when the concentration of a substance in an organism exceeds the background concentration of the substance in its diet.  Examples are mercury and DDT.

Oceanography Final Essay

The fundamentals of physical oceanography and meteorology make the Earth habitable.  The physical oceanography includes the waves, tides, currents, etc.  The meteorology includes the winds and the climate.  Earth is the only planet in our solar system and universe that can sustain life.  That is because the Earth is in a spot in the solar system that enables us to be able to comfortably live in our planet.  The Earth is the third planet away from the sun, so we get the perfect amount of sun in order to live, we aren’t too close so we don’t get too much, and we aren’t too far so we don’t get too little.  The waves, tides, and currents along with the winds and climate all come into play because of the Earth, and where it is located.  The waves, tides, currents, winds, and climate all take part in making the Earth habitable.

            The ocean is a major influence on weather and climate, which is one of the reasons that make Earth habitable.  The oceans in the world are important to heating the planet.  The winds and currents move the nutrients and the heat around the world.  The areas of land and atmosphere absorb some of the sunlight, while the Earth’s oceans absorb the majority of the sun’s radiation.  The areas around the equator are the warmest on Earth, and the ocean acts as a heat-retaining solar panel.   If it wasn’t for Earth’s atmosphere, all the heat we get from the sun during the day would quickly radiate into space after sunset, so the atmosphere plays a huge part.  Along with solar radiation, the ocean helps distribute heat around the globe.  Evaporation happens when the water molecules are heated, and they exchange freely in the air.  Since the ocean water is constantly evaporating, so the temperature and humidity is increasing of the surrounding air which is how rain and storms are formed,  and then are carried off by the winds and can go very far distances, maybe all over the world.  Most of the rain on land starts out in the ocean, and the tropics have so much rain because of evaporation.  Weather patterns are mostly caused by ocean currents.  Ocean currents transport precipitation and warm water around the world in a specific order, which causes the currents to regulate the climate of Earth, which evenly distributes the solar radiation of Earth’s climate.  Without the ocean currents, Earth’s land would be much less habitable.

            The oceans around the world and the people on Earth are inextricably interconnected for multiple reasons.  Humans cannot live without the ocean.  The ocean supplies fresh water for humans, and almost all of our oxygen.  The ocean gives humans food, medicines, and energy resources.  The ocean provides a variety of different jobs for humans, and serves as a global transportation for countries all around the world to trade goods and such, acting as a highway.  Not only does the ocean affect humans, but humans affect the ocean, as well.  Fishing, pollution, and building are all ways that humans affect the ocean.  All living things on Earth depend on the ocean, so it is up to everyone to care for it.  Explorers also have a big part in the ocean.  The European’s were the most famous ocean explorers, but there were also the Polynesians, Phoenicians, etc.  The explorers used the ocean to discover knew parts of the world, like how the Europeans discovered the Americas.  If it wasn’t for the ocean, then they would not have been able to do that.

            The ocean shapes the features of the Earth.  The ocean affects the places that we live in.  A lot of the rocks and minerals that form our planet come from the ocean.  The beaches are made and changed by the effects of the ocean waves and its currents.  The changes in sea level have also literally shaped the surface of Earth’s lands.  The deep ocean trenches are an example of features that can form along plate tectonic boundaries.  From the result of the ocean, the plate tectonics move a few centimeters each year.  That shapes the Earth because it causes the land on Earth to move, as well as creating mountains and volcanoes, which changes the land areas.  The ocean is very powerful, which causes the features on Earth to change.  The breaking waves form and shape the coastlines on Earth.  Waves deposit and carry away the sediments on the land areas.  The coastlines all around the world are different from the different oceans and waves, but no matter where it is, the ocean has a major effect to the coastline, shaping it to how it is.
            The Earth is habitable all because of the waves, tides, currents, winds, and climate.  They are all very important to the survival of all life on Earth.  All of these fundamentals of physical oceanography and meteorology correspond in order to make Earth habitable.  Without just one of these, it could have a major impact of life on Earth.  I think for in order to keep Earth how it is, or even better, we need to make specific changes for the better connecting to each individual fundamental.  If it wasn’t for the major influence on weather and climate, we would not have the winds and currents move nutrients and heat.  If it wasn’t for the ocean and the people and how they are inextricably interconnected, we could not have had the explorers who even founded other continents in the world, along with food from the ocean, and oxygen in order to survive.  If the ocean didn’t shape the features of the Earth, we wouldn’t have tides, waves, coastlines, and plate tectonics.  All of these fundamentals tie things together, and we need to keep things the way they are in order for Earth to stay habitable for much longer.  

Work Cited

http://www.neosec.org/ol6

http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/facts/climate.html

https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/

http://www.neosec.org/ol2

http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/facts/shaping.html

http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/facts/tectonic-features.html

http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/students/waves/waves4.htm

Sand: A Grain of History

When people think of sand, usually the first thing that comes to mind is a sandy beach.  Sand is the pulverized, weather rock including some fragments of tiny shelled creatures, which are tossed up by the waves and are also sediment from other inland areas.  Sand is basically the breakdown of rocks.  Some minerals are very unstable and decompose, while other minerals are much more stable.  The minerals that are more stable tend to get left behind.  All of the variables come together to create different-looking beaches.  Sand has been around for a long time, so most of the sand that is on the beaches, especially on the East coast and the Gulf coast, are about 5,000 years old.  Sand doesn't reach beaches today like it used to, so most of the sand is old.  One reason is the general rise in sea levels.  The rise in sea levels over the last 12,000 years has flooded river valleys and created large estuaries.  The estuaries trap the sand that would of reached the coast and gone onto the beaches, but instead stays trapped in the estuaries.  After major storms, beaches have to be replenished, by having sand off-shore be dragged up to the beaches.
There are so many grains of sand in the world, more than anyone could ever imagine.  With all this sand, where could it possibly come from?  Well, a lot of this sand is poop.  Key players in regulating algae and reef life is the Parrotfish.  The Parrotfish have additional teeth in their throats to help break down all the coral they eat into sand.  Parrotfish don't even have stomachs, so when they digest the sand, in comes right out exploding into a cloud of sand.  840 pounds of sand can be created alone by a larger parrotfish.  Besides the parrotfish; worms, sponges, and oysters also produce sand in the Pacific ocean, but no animal can do it as well as the parrotfish.  Sand has a very interesting history.