BIO 2: Take Home Test
The first organism that I will be talking about is called Dinoflagellates . The super group that this organism belongs to is called Chromalveolates. They are members of the phylum Pyrrophyta , which means “Fire Plants.” . About half of the Dinoflagellates are photosynthetic and other half live as heterotrophs.
Dinoflagellates are organisms that usually have two flagella. The Flagella is a structure that is used to wrap itself in the organism’s grooves between the two thick plates of cellulose. The cellulose is the material that protects the cell. The flagella also serves like a threadlike structure which is used for movement. The organism’s nucleus is very unique because it shares both characteristics of prokaryotic cells and eukaryotic cells.
Closely Dinoflagellates do have a parasitic relationship with other organisms. They kill the host organisms. They are capable of producing their own food and they make chlorophyll a and c. The producers are not dependent on any other organism for its source of food. However the ones that are carnivores can be dangerous. Those that are carnivorous can release toxic waste in the water that can also affect other marine organisms. Few dinoflagellates are also symbiotic in relationship which the organisms use the remaining food of the host. These dinoflagellates that are symbiotic are also known as “zooxanthellae.”
Many of its species are luminescent and when it’s disturbed by sudden movement in the water they give off light as a result. The movement of a boat’s hull will cause the dark water to shimmer with a blue light. Therefore it results to this luminescent property giving the phylum its name. These organisms are very common in aquatic environments. Also...
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... Introduction to Foraminifera page. Some of these organisms can be found in ocean, coral reefs, and finally salt marshes.
The organism has pseudopods that are used to capture food than later used for movement. They have a shell made of calcium carbonate or sand grains that are cemented by mucus and form net like structure to capture the food. This organism is had a symbiotic relationship between other organisms.
The final organism that I will be talking about is Radiolarians. This organism belongs to the super group Rhizaria as well. Radiolarians are amoeboid protozoa that produce skeletons. They are mostly found with a central capsule that divides the cell inside and outside which is called endoplasm and ectoplasm. The habitat this organism is found as a zooplankton throughout the ocean. Its skeletal remains cover majority of the ocean bottom.
Tigriopus californicus is an amazing little marine crustacean that is classified as a Harpactacoid copepod. Harpactacoid meaning it’s class, and copepod meaning its order.
The Sacculina carsini, or parasitic barnacle, makes it’s host a green crab, also known as the Carcinus maenas. The parasite in this relationship changes the host’s behavior. It also enables itself to survive, spread and continue this cycle. As talked about in “The Parasitic Sacculina That Bends Its Host to Its Own Will”, when a female barnacle is still in its larval stage, it finds a crab host, and it locates a certain joint in the host’s shell. When there, the parasitic barnacle sheds her outer shell and puts herself inside the crab. Once she is inside, she is in a slug-like form. She creates a root system of tendrils, which extend throughout the abdomen of the crab. The root system takes over the crab’s intestine, diverticulae and surrounds the stomach. This
Sabellaria cementarium belongs to the phylum Annelids and is an invertebrate polychaete species. They are found in small clumps at the rocky bottoms of the sea floor where they use the rich source of natural phytoplankton as their primary diet (Qian and Chia, 1990). The tube-like worms can behave social and form extensive reefs or independently build hollow tubes in to the sandstone (pawlik and Chia, 1991). Embryos form a polar lobe that is absorbed in to the blastomeres at the end of division. Larval development and movement follows shortly after the 14-15 hour fertilization period where spiral cleaving of the fertilized oocytes appears (Render, 1983). Much is still not known about the invertebrate worm in their natural niche.
Throughout time, of course, marine biologists have created methods—or “techniques” (163)—that allow such a task to become more straightforward. The method which mainly comes to mind involves close observation of the organism, and noting as much of its minor and major characteristics while attempting to identify it. By recording such details as the organism’s symmetry, general shape, colors, external appearance, internal structure, and measurement, marine scientists can refer back to identification guides to figure out what specific classification their organism fits in, or whether they have the right taxonomy in mind or not (Mertz, Garrison and Baker 163-164). Upon confirming the organism’s identity with the noted characteristics, finding extra information about it becomes much easier
Phylon 49.3/4 (2001): 173. Academic Search Premier -. Web. The Web. The Web. 20 Mar. 2014.
The “water bear” is a common name for a group of a little over 100 genera of protozoans grouped under the Phylum Tardigrada and is a relative of the Phylum Arthropoda. The phylum Tardigrada contains over 1000 species, and is grouped into three classes. There are two main classes the Heterotarigrada ad the Eutardigrada. The last is the Mesotardigrada and contains only one species, that was discovered in a sulfur spring in Japan 1937, and has not been seen since. “Water bears” are, as with most species, separated into groups by characteristics and more recently molecular genetic methods. The Heterotarigrada are known mainly for their hair like tufts on appendages and hard-undivided flattened scales. The Eutardigrada are known as “naked tardigrades” because they lack the hard scales or have several separate plates. Tardigrades are then divide further into orders by comparing groups for cuticle appearance, feeding tube, claws, and other defining features (Michalczyk, 2014).
The outer layer of a reef consists of living animals, or polyps, of coral. Single-celled algae called zooxanthellae live within the coral polyps, and a skeleton containing filamentous green algae surrounds them. The photosynthetic zooxanthellae and green algae transfer food energy directly to the coral polyps, while acquiring scarce nutrients from the coral. The numerous micro habitats of coral reefs and the high biological productivity support a great diversity of other life.
Corals are a type of animal called a polyp, the simplest of predators that eat meat in the form of drifting zooplankton…all corals have boarders, zillions of microscopic, one-celled plants called zooxanthellae that live inside the polyps and transform sunlight into oxygen, keeping the corals alive. As you will see, the corals need these algae in order to live, but too much is deadly.
At the Aquarium of the Pacific, many different oceanic habitats are presented. These exhibits give the public an idea of the different environments our own oceans hold, providing a hands-on learning experience in the comfort of their own city. The two habitats that interested me are the coral reef and deep ocean. Both the coral reef and deep ocean are very different from each other, having varied ways of survival for the plethora of plants and animals that call those places home.
This research focuses on Gambierdiscus toxicus which is an armored, marine, benthic species in the phylum Dinoflagellata. It has an epitheca and a hypotheca, that is very similar in size, compressed anterio-posteriorly. The theca is covered with numerous deep and dense pores which are very thick. This species is autotrophic creating energy via several golden-brown chloroplasts (Hackett et al 2004), but is also heterotrophic and hence is referred to as mixotrophic. It has a ventrally – oriented crescent shaped nucleus. (Adachi & Fukuyo 1979). It usually inhabits warmer waters such as bay, mediterranian, tropical/sub – tropical in North/Central America (Shiumuzu et al 1982; Loeblich & Indelicato 1986), Asia/Pacific (Holmes & Tao 2002; Lu & Hodgkiss 2004) and has recently been identified in the Mediterranean (Aligizaki & Nikolaidis 2008). These authors identified the organisms to genus level, at best of their effort, so may have been one of the less common members of its genus although it is unlikely.
Soft corals are grouped in the phylum Cnidaria, class Anthozoa, and order Alcyonacea. Their distinguishing characteristic is that their polyps always bear eight tentacles which are on both edges fringed by rows of pinnules (Fabricius and De’ath, 2002). The common name “soft coral” comes from the fact that they have no massive external skeleton as compared to the more commonly studied hard corals.
Porifera is the most simplistic phylum under the kingdom Animalia. The sponges have no tissue layers, but instead an interior and exterior layer with a gelatinous middle layer that separates the two. They are the only phylum with asymmetrical symmetry. Throughout the advancing phyla it will be shown this trait is lost. Porifera lacks a proper digestive system, but a canal system allows the sponges to filter feed. Along the inside of a sponge, flagella pump water through the sponge’s body. This process brings in oxygen and other small organisms and then flows out the top of the sponge, the osculum, removing waste by diffusion. Sponges lack a circulatory system, as does many of the first couple of phyla. A coinciding factor could be their small size. A nervous system is also missing, but very basic nerve cells within the pores sense the water currents. Gas exchange occurs through these pores. Reproduction in sponges can be asexual by budding, gammation, or fragmentation. Some sponges can also have sexual reproduction occur as an egg gets released and fertilized in the open water by free floating sperm. After this stage they cling onto rock and begin their sessile, basic, life....
Organisms are often divided into three major groups: producers, consumers and decomposers. Each group plays a critical role in the food chain, and life would not exist in the way it does now without any one of them. Producers are also known as autotrophs or primary producers while consumers are known as heterotrophs or secondary producers. Autotrophs can produce their own food from materials in the environment using light or chemical energy. On the other hand, heterotrophs rely on other organisms, either plants or animals, for their food source since they cannot synthesize their own food. Autotrophs, such as plants, algae and cyanobacteria, use either photosynthesis or chemosynthesis to produce energy. Most well known organisms of these autotrophs