Second Lab Journal

During the second lab, we got to observe a significant amount of organisms, visually but especially audibly. We traveled to our BioCube location, and the first thing we noticed was that our BioCube had been completely destroyed. It appeared that some kind of animal had tried to even eat it, as many of the pieces were bent and taken apart completely and the whole structure was bent and ruined. Nothing else in the area of our BioCube seemed any different; there was no other damage to the plants and everything looked much the same as it had the week before, except for the BioCube itself. After taking out our BioCube and establishing that we would probably need to build a new one instead of repair this one, we took our 15 minutes of silence. During these 15 minutes, it was possible to hear more than we had heard the first week, partially because it was warmer but mostly because it was far less windy. I could hear various birds during the fifteen minutes of silence, at different distances and with different calls. One made a very short, chirpy kind of noise, that went up in pitch at the very end. It seemed to be coming from across the stream. Another had a very repetitive, longer call that sounded more like a low-pitched trill, and that one was coming very close to where we placed our BioCube. Another one I could hear made more a medium length noise and was again rather repetitive but did not have a short and trill-like call. Within the area of the swamp, and after the fifteen minutes of silence when we began exploring our ecyostem, there were a lot more plants present than last week, or at least we found more than we did last week. Things seemed overall greener, and I found three or four different types of plants. One seemed to be a kind of moss that was closer to the treeline, and I found it growing near the base of one tree. It was very green, and low to the ground, with what appeared to be lots of pore-like areas. Also in the area closer to the treeline was a plant that we had seen the previous week. In the first lab, the plant had a reddish-purple part on its leaves and was also green. However, this week, the plant barely had any of the red-purple color and was mostly all green. Its leaves were also wider and had opened more than the previous week, where the leaves were mostly closed in towards the stalk and narrow. Within the swamp area, I found another few types of plants. One plant had a very long and thin green stalk, with very few leaves. It had a white-ish bulb-like end to it, with short and thin brown roots as well. I found this plant near the edge of the water in one of the more isolated pools of water and mud among the grass present in the swamp. Another type of plant I observed was a much shorter, thinner, and more delicate plant. It had a very thin green stalk, and at the top, there appeared to be two leaves. They were very round and flat and had a softer texture to them. The area where the stem became the roots was also white, but it did not have a bulb like the other plant did. The roots were also thin and brown but they were almost as long as the stem was. I again found this plant near the edge of the water and growing very much in the mud. Another plant I found seemed to be more of a part of a plant. I found what seemed to be a branch of a plant that was slightly reddish in color and had smaller branches coming off of it, each with small red berry or seed-like parts. I found this floating in the water. Similarly, I found another branch of a different plant, and this branch was a dark brown and did not have branches stretching off of it. Instead, it had branches very close to the stalk, and each branch had what appeared to be seeds on them, and the branches were spiraling around each other. Within the swamp area, I did not find too many organisms. When we began to investigate the water, we stirred up the water and mud and we did catch a few different bugs. There was a moth stuck on the top of the water, which was very small and white in appearance. Other than these bugs, there weren’t many other animals present that we could see. As we were leaving, a duck flew down and swam through the stream next to the swamp area which was pretty neat.
Overall, the swamp definitely produced more than last week and more than I was expecting. It was really interesting to hear all of the different organisms living together and to see the plants that had adapted to living in different areas.

Posted on 17 de abril de 2019, 07:42 PM by nina132