Day 13 Five Sources

                    

 1. www.blueplanetbiomes.org/savanna.htm

2. education.nationalgeographic.org/media/african-savanna-illustration/

3. coolaustralia.org/wp-content/.../Australiantropicalsavannafactsheet.pdf

4.www.softschools.com › Facts › Biomes Facts

5. kids.nceas.ucsb.edu/.../savanna.ht...

  

These are the five most important sources that we used for our blog, thank you for reading our adventures, and keep an eye out for more to come. 

Travis and Jayda signing out......!!

Day 12 Animals And Their Adaptations

As Travis and i were traveling through the Australian Savanna we ran into some weird looking animals that we have never seen before. Of course we wanted to just watch them and experiment, but we did not forget our purpose of these trips. So, we observed the bird and we came up with what we think are the animal's adaptations. So, the first animals name is called an Emu and is known for its fluffy feathers and for it also having three toes, which they use as an assault weapon. Some adaptations of this bird are, its double quilled feathers, that allow it to maintain its body temperature, and in the cold they fluff there feathers to keep them warm. One last adaptation of this bird is that it is able to grind p their food with there gizzard since they do not have any teeth.

Another animal that we saw looking up into the trees was one that we were actually familiar with was the koala bear. This fuzzy bear is very common and is loved because of its cute appearance and friendly faces. There are many cartoons that have koala bears in them, and in those cartoons, this bear is actually portrayed as a friendly animal. This Marsupial is known for is lean, but muscular body, big ears, and yellow eyes. The koala bear also has adaptations that fit its lifestyle, such as having paws that have traction which allow them to climb trees without them slipping or falling down. another adaptation that it has is thick fur that help keep it cool, but at the same time warm when it gets cold.

Another common organism which this time is an amphibian is the red eyed tree frog which is highly known for its bright red eyes and hands and feet. This frog is often seen in the trees of the Australian Savanna climbing up and down, and jumping from tree to tree. Some known adaptations this frog has are its bright eyes, which cause its predators to think its poisoned and run away. Another adaptation that this frog is that its red eyes allow them to see at night, which make these frogs nocturnal. Its funny its red eyes, which is what it is known for contains the tthings it needs in order to survive in its enviroment

Day 11 Nitrogen Cycle

The Nitrogen cycle of this biome of course is all started by the sun on all plants while the plants are creating food through photosynthesis. Then as the  water is coming down, as precipitation the ground swelling is caused, and is putting carbohydrates into the soil which makes it possible for trees to be able to grow back after forest fires. Of course transpiration occurs through the leaves of the trees into the air and turns into condensation. Overall in this enviroment trees are very important because they turn carbon dioxide oxygen that we can actually breathe.

Day 10 Food Web

                                  

This food web contains some of the organisms that are located in the Australian Savanna. This food web of course is all started with the sun, which allow the producers to do photosynthesis and make food using the sun for other organisms. This food web also contains the primary consumers such as termites and kangaroos. Also the secondary consumers containing the magpie, and the frilled lizard. Lastly, this food web contains the tertiary consumers, which are the dingo, the wedge tailed eagle, and the laughing kookaburra.

Day 9 The Energy Pyramid

This energy pyramid shows various organisms located in the Australian Savanna which is bamboo as the producer, grubs, a the primary consumer, and the mountain gorillas acting as the secondary consumer. Lastly, the jaguar  is placed as the tertiary consumer. Each time going  up a trophic level ten percent of energy is retained or kept, and 90 percent overall is lost here in the Australian savanna         

Day 8 Resource Competition

                               

 
One example of resource competition between two organisms are humans and the koala bear, which is actually surprising because you would think this would be between two animals. In this situation this is caused because of the trees. The koala bears live in the trees and they always have, but humans need eucalyptus, which are located in these trees, and koalas also need this eucalyptus. So humans are cutting the trees down which is deforestation causing the koalas to die because they have no home to live in, so in this relationship the humans win by getting the resources that they need, and often leaving the koala bears with nothing at all.

Another example of resource competition is between the Red Eyed Tree Frog, this competition is actually between its own species. There are more male tree frogs then female tree frogs, so the tree frogs actually fight over the female tree frogs looking for a mate. The female then mates with the winner of the fight. This is almost like the world when there would be two worthy men that would fight over the queen, and whoever won got to marry the queen. Except in this situation this is actually between tree frogs.

Wombats have competed against cattle, sheep, and particularly rabbits and the competition against rabbits is because of livestock. Both the rabbits and the wombats need the livestock, so they are actually fighting each other for it. In this fight the rabbits are winning causing a decrease in wombat population. So, between the two organisms the rabbit is winning in this competition, and since the rabbits are winning wombats are now protected by NSW to keep them from going extinct.

Day 7 Density dependent and independent factors

As Jayda and I were walking through the Australian Savanna we started to wonder what the density independent and dependent factors were of this biome.  We asked some of the travelers that were traveling alongside us, but they had no clue. So with our brilliant minds we got the idea to find these factors based on the animal and plant adaptations. The most common density independent factors are forest fires, and floods. We knew that forest fires was one of them because of  how many of the trees in this enviroment have the adaptation to grow back after a forest fire, by ground swelling. The floods are another obvious density independent factor, because of how many flowers, plants ,and trees have roots that soak up water. These roots soaking up water prevent flooding because of how the water is absorbed in the soil of the plants.


Now we deciphered density independent factors, next we tried this with density dependent factors, which are predation, and competition between the species. Firstly predation was obviously one of them because of how some organisms have adaptations that allow them to survive from their predators such as frogs have a bright color in order to fool their predator and make them think that they are poisonous. Lastly competition between the species is one of the density dependent factors because in the Australian savanna their is a lot of competition of resources that are becoming scarce.