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Assignment: 04.02 The Biosphere In this lesson, you took a tour of three of our unique aquatic biomes. In this assessment, you will
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Assignment: 04.02 The Biosphere
In this lesson, you took a tour of three of our unique aquatic biomes. In this assessment, you will take a virtual field trip to any aquatic ecosystem of your choice and learn about the biotic and abiotic factors that shape it.
A virtual field trip is a Web search of a location you are unable to visit in person. For this virtual trip, pick any sea, lake, bay, or river in the world and research the biotic and abiotic factors that make it unique. Include the following features in your virtual field trip research:
1. the location of your body of water
2. a description of the geography surrounding your body of water
3. the effects of sunlight on the aquatic life inhabiting your body of water
4. the depths and salinity of your body of water and how this shapes the types of aquatic life present
5. the effects of seasonal changes to water temperatures and aquatic life in your body of water
6. predictions or current research on the effects of climate change to your body of water
Once, you’ve gathered your research, share your virtual field trip with us. Include pictures of your aquatic ecosystem and the life within it in your presentation, but make sure to cite the sources of your pictures and research. Please review the student example and rubric for this virtual field trip before continuing.
You may share your field trip in any creative format you would like. Here are a few suggestions:
– video or media presentation
– slide show
– Web page
– illustration that includes research notes If you need would like an assessment outline
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Biology
4 years
2021-07-24T04:00:15+00:00
2021-07-24T04:00:15+00:00 1 Answers
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Like terrestrial biomes, aquatic biomes are influenced by a series of abiotic factors. The aquatic medium—water— has different physical and chemical properties than air, however. Even if the water in a pond or other body of water is perfectly clear (there are no suspended particles), water, on its own, absorbs light. As one descends into a deep body of water, there will eventually be a depth which the sunlight cannot reach. While there are some abiotic and biotic factors in a terrestrial ecosystem that might obscure light (like fog, dust, or insect swarms), usually these are not permanent features of the environment. The importance of light in aquatic biomes is central to the communities of organisms found in both freshwater and marine ecosystems. In freshwater systems, stratification due to differences in density is perhaps the most critical abiotic factor and is related to the energy aspects of light. The thermal properties of water (rates of heating and cooling and the ability to store much larger amounts of energy than the air) are significant to the function of marine systems and have major impacts on global climate and weather patterns. Marine systems are also influenced by large-scale physical water movements, such as currents; these are less important in most freshwater lakes.
The ocean is categorized by several areas or zones (Figure 44.21 (Links to an external site.)). All of the ocean’s open water is referred to as the pelagic realm (or zone). The benthic realm (or zone) extends along the ocean bottom from the shoreline to the deepest parts of the ocean floor. Within the pelagic realm is the photic zone, which is the portion of the ocean that light can penetrate (approximately 200 m or 650 ft). At depths greater than 200 m, light cannot penetrate; thus, this is referred to as the aphotic zone. The majority of the ocean is aphotic and lacks sufficient light for photosynthesis.