Team members
Names / Roles:
- [Hilman](Leader)
- [Hong Zheng](Wiki Writer)
- [Darrell](Researcher)
- [Rafiah](Researcher)
- [Ayub](Researcher)
Overview
In this section, include a brief description of the allocated ecosystem. You should include the following information:
- Location of the ecosystem
- Answer:Earth's polar region are the areas of the globe surrounding the poles also known a frigid zones.The North Pole and South Pole being the centres,these regions are dominated by the polar ice caps,resting respectively on the Arctic Ocean and the continent of Antarctica.Polar sea ice is currently diminishing,possibly as a result of global warming.
- Description of ecosystem
- Answer: The northern polar region consists mainly of floating and pack ice, 7–10 feet (2–3 m) thick, floating on the Arctic Ocean and surrounded by land masses. The ice cap of the southern polar region averages 6,700 feet (about 2,000 m) in thickness, is underlaid by the continental landmass of Antarctica, and is surrounded by oceans. Both were first penetrated as far as the poles in the early 20th century—the North Pole in 1909 by Robert Peary and the South Pole in 1911 by Roald Amundsen.
- Biodiversity of ecosystem (richness of life in ecosystem)
Physical Factors
Search the Internet for information on the following physical factors in the allocated ecosystem.
- Light (availability of sunlight in the ecosystem),
- Answer:An ecosystem is comprised of, and affected by, two components. The biotic factors are living things that are in and influence an ecosystem, such as plants, animals and humans, bacteria and fungi. The other component is abiotic factors, all other elements in the ecosystem, which, despite not being alive, nonetheless impact the ecosystem. The categories of abiotic factors are water availability and quality, sunlight, meteorology, soil conditions, air quality and topography.
- Temperature (temperature of the ecosystem),
- Water (water quality in the ecosystem),
- Answer: Analysts determine water quality by testing for specific chemicals. Most often, the type of water being tested determines what parameters, or analytes, the analyst looks for. For example, chlorine is an important parameter in finished drinking water, but is not usually a factor in natural water. This section lists common water quality parameters important in drinking water, wastewater, and natural water. Many parameter listings include descriptions of the effects of analyte levels on living organisms.
- Salinity (freshwater or seawater found in the ecosystem).
- Answer: These are the physical and chemical elements that make up a habitat. The non-biological factors that create the limiting factors for the organisms that live there. As an example of this limitation consider what you may have come across before with regard to photosynthesis. There are a number of limiting factors which determine the rate at which oxygen and carbohydrates are formed. The main ones are 1. Temperature 2. Level of carbon dioxide 3. Intensity of light. Any plant living within the water, e.g. water crowfoot, may be just under the surface but the surface itself will reflect a considerable amount of light away. By being in water there is less light for photosynthesis. As if this is not enough, the deeper you go the intensity continues to diminsh and the wavelengths of light able to penetrate change, e.g. red light passes through the least, green the most. So light must be an important consideration. Temperature will affect the ability of an organism to carry out metabolism; the warmer the conditions the better able enzymes can operate. You might expect lowland water to be warmer than that in upland. However, water does provide a stable temperature over short periods of time (like a water bath in a lab experiment). While on the subject of photosynthesis, of course for some plants it will be the level of carbon dioxide actually dissolved in the water that is important.Although many of the factors are shared with all freshwater habitats moving water has speed of flow as a major additional consideration.
- Air (quality of air in the ecosystem),
- Answer: Poor air quality can result from a combination of factors. Regional air quality is affected by how air behaves as a result of the interaction of topography and weather, and by the emission sources themselves.
- pH of the environment (how acidic or alkaline the ecosystem is),
- Answer:Acidicis markedly stabilized by heparin. Partially due to the heterogeneity of heparin preparations, the nature of the aFGF polyanion binding site is still ill-defined. We have, therefore, investigated a wide variety of well-defined polyanions in terms of their ability to stabilize human recombinant aFGF (15-154) against thermal denaturation. The specificity of the interaction between aFGF and polyanions is shown to be remarkably weak with a surprising number of polyanions (including small phosphorylated and sulfated compounds as well as highly charged biopolymers) able to induce physical stability. Temperature-dependent fluorescence and circular dichroism measurements show that many of these polyanionic compounds stabilize aFGF to the same extent as heparin. The ability of these agents to protect the three free thiol groups of aFGF from copper-catalyzed oxidation was also explored and significant protection was observed. The extent and electrostatic requirements of the protein's polyanion binding site were probed by the use of a series of well-defined heparin fragments and differentially phosphorylated inositol compounds. A tetrasaccharide fragment of heparin is the smallest unit of heparin capable of stabilizing aFGF against thermal denaturation. Increasing phosphorylation of inositol compounds (up to six phosphate groups per molecule) enhances the thermal stability of aFGF. These results are discussed in the context of a model of human aFGF based on the X-ray crystal structure of the bovine protein and previous studies by others of the heparin binding site of both acidic and basic FGF.
- mineral salts (availability of nutrients and mineral salts in the ecosystem)
- Answer: Plants can prepare carbohydrates, fats, proteins and vitamins in their body. However they cannot generate the mineral ions. Thus for plants, the constant supply of minerals is very essential. The study of how plants obtain mineral elements, either through water, air or soil and utilize them for their growth and development is called mineral nutrition.
Classification of Living Organisms
Classify at least eight of the living organisms found in the allocated ecosystem into the categories below:
- Producers:forbs,shrub,seeds,wild flowers,glass seeds
- Primary Consumers:camels,rabbits,,kangaroo,coyotes
- Secondary Consumers:fennec,rosy boa,common kingsnake
- Tertiary Consumers:snakes,hawk,mountain lion
- Decomposers:desert beetles,earthworm,milipede
For each of the living organism, find a picture and write a short description on the organism. You may wish to include feeding habits, region in the ecosystem where it is normally found etc.
Food Web
Create a food web using at least eight of the living organisms listed above. You may wish to use Microsoft PowerPoint to create your food web. Save your food web as a picture. Finally copy and paste your picture in this section of your wiki.
Interrelationship in Ecosystem
Give at least one example for each of the following relationships in the ecosystem:
- Predator-prey relationship
- Parasitism
- Mutualism
Useful Links
Plagarism is a strongly discouraged.
Include the links of all websites you obtained information from to complete your ecology wiki.
For example:
Wild World @ nationalgeographic.com ( http://www.nationalgeographic.com/wildworld/terrestrial.html )
- [Name of website] (website address)
- [Name of website] (website address)
- [Name of website] (website address)
- [Name of website] (website address)