Ecological Succession Lab

Succession, the process of a community changing over time, can be broken down into sub groups such as ecological, primary, pond, and secondary. Ecological succession being the most basic. In the Succession Lab, we observed a community in a ecosystem. As we recorded the data each class, we observed that succession takes place with rapid speed for in each observation, a new specimen is identified. A niche is how the organisms live, what their role in the community is. For example, an ecological niche is how a certain organism reacts to limited resources and competitors. Another definition for a niche is the role that an organism plays in a food chain. When the resources are abundant, less competition in the community, or even when their predators
We identified the eubranchipus, a organism with similar characteristics to one of a shrimp. Another name for it would be the fairy shrimp. During this observation, only two eubranchipus were identified. We did not have as many eubranchipus as the other groups but we were able to put one under the microscope. This organism has very fast movement and many legs. Another observation we made was that they swim upside down instead of right side up. Bothe of he fairy shrimps were translucent. The colors of them are determined by the food supply of their environment. These organisms started off as dried out eggs but as soon was we added tap water, it made food sources available in order to survive , therefore allowing the eggs to hatch. On the fifth observation, one of our eubranchipus died as another one grew bigger. The surviving shrimp started off as being 0.8 cm and increased to 1.2 cm. This is probably because of the lack of resources and competition - survival of the fittest. Less protist of the same size were found and the water was more still due to the limited organisms living in it. The population of protists are decreasing because it is the food source of the eubranchipus (also cynobacteria). Again, this is because of the existence of a food