Question

1. Marine ecosystem

Read this fragment from Gerald Durrell’s book “ My family and other animals” describing the tide pool life on Corfu ( Greek island ).

-- find all producers mentioned make a list

-- find all consumers mentioned and make a list

-- add to them plankton and make a food web in the space below the text ( show with connecting lines who eats whom ).

“ On the reefs that were only a few inches below the water, and that were uncovered at low tide, you found the thickest congregation of life. In the holes were the pouting blennies, which stared at you with their thick lips, giving their faces an expression of insolence as they fluttered their fins at you. In the shady clefts among the weeds the sea urchins would be gathered in clusters, like shiny brown horse-chestnut seed-cases, their spines moving gently like compass needles towards possible danger. Around them the anemones clung to the rocks, plump and lustrous, their arms waving in an abandoned and somehow Eastern-looking dance in an effort to catch the shrimps that flipped past, transparent as glass. Routing in the dark underwater caverns, I unearthed a baby octopus, who settled on the rocks like a Medusa head, blushed to a muddy brown, and regarded me with rather sad eyes from beneath the bald dome of its head. A further movement on my part and it spat out a small storm-cloud of black ink that hung and rolled in the clear water, while the octopus skimmed off behind it. There were crabs too, fat, green, shiny ones on the tops of the reef, waving their claws in what appeared friendly manner, and down below, on the weedy bed of the sea, the spider crabs with their strange spiky-edged shells, their long, thin legs, each wearing a coat of weeds, sponges, or occasionally an anemone which they had carefully planted on their backs. Everywhere on the reefs, the weed patches, the sandy bottom, moved hundreds of top shells, neatly striped and speckled in blue, silver, grey, and red, with the scarlet and rather indignant face of a hermit crab peering out from underneath. They were like small ungainly caravans moving about, bumping into each other, barging through the weeds, or rumbling swiftly across the sand among the towering clam-shells and sea fans.”

Perform additional analysis of the text:

-- list all sessile animals:_______________

--list all filter-feeding animals:__________________

--list all active predators ___________________

-- name pairs of organisms that might have symbiotic relationships and identify it as commensalism, mutualism, or parasitism_____________________________

-- find some animals that might use defensive mechanism ( give detailed explanation)

--which organisms from this community belong to omnivores?___________

-- which of them belong to carnivores? _____________________

-- which of them belong to herbivores?_____________

-- which of them belong to detritivores? _______________________

They were not mentioned in this fragment, but, of course, decomposers are part of any community. So, guess, what kind of organisms would be decomposers in tidal pool area?

Answer 1

• All producers mentioned here are follows: Weeds, weed patches, sea fans.
• All consumers mentioned here are follows: pouting blennies, sea urchins, anemones, shrimps, octopus, Crabs, weedy sea dragon, spider crabs, shells,  hermit crab, clam-shells.
• sessile animals( Sessile animals are animals that attach to a surface and stay in the same place for most of their time, sometimes not moving at all ): anemones
• Filter-feeding animals: shrimps, clam-shells.
• Active predators: Active predators are those that search or hunt for their prey. Octopus comes under this
• Omnivorus: Shrimps, Spider crabs, hermit crabs
• Carnivores: Anemones, Octopus, sea dragons.
• Detritivores: Crabs,
• Herbivorus: Sea urchins are herbivores that clean the coral reefs. Pouting blennies