Muddy River Ecosystem Paper

Muddy River Ecosystem An ecosystem refers to a complex set of relationships between all plants, animals, and microorganisms functioning along with the non-living physical factors of an environment (The Ecosystem Concept, 2003). Ecosystems can be used to describe any situation where there is a relationship between the organisms and their environment. In the following paper, the ecosystem of a particular location, the Muddy River, will be discussed on and determined whether it is healthy or not.

The Muddy River is a small waterway located in the city of Boston, and the town of Brookline. It has a total area of 5.6 square miles, with the Muddy River’s total length reaching 3.5 miles. The Muddy River flows through a park system named ‘Emerald

There are three components researched under Abiotic, including Water Chemistry, Weather/Climate and Topography.

Firstly, water chemistry consists of three components – pH, Turbidity and conductivity. There were three different experiments conducted to measure the health of the Muddy River ecosystem, with the same theme consistently recurring – with geese and without geese. The geese commonly identified in this experiment were the Canada goose, a native species to North America (Canada Goose, 2014). Water samples with geese were collected on the left side of the bridge by the muddy river, and the samples without geese were collected by the right side of the bridge.

Hypothesises and predictions are typically written to determine the purpose of the experiment before conducting it. A hypothesis refers to the relationship between two objects, and a prediction refers to a reworded hypothesis. pH refers to a numeric scale used to measure the acidity or alkalinity of a solution (pH Definition in Chemistry, 2016). The hypothesis for the pH experiment is ‘pH level of water is higher in areas with geese’, and the prediction is ‘If the pH level is higher, geese will be present’. The following steps were conducted for the pH experiment: (1) Open the sample bottle. (2) Place the pH Meter stick into the sample bottle. (3) Allow the reading to stabilise.

The following steps were conducted to measure the elevation of the hill: (1) Stabilize the surveyor level, on the selected hill of study. (2) Person A holds the stadia rod and stands at a spot on the foot of the hill. Person B holds the surveyor level and looks through the hole. The bottom of the stadia rod should be visible through the hole. (3) Person C measures the distance between the rod and surveyor level. (4) The surveyor level is brought up to the rod’s position, and the rod is moved to a higher level, adjusted accordingly to the view from the peep hole in the surveyor level. (5) The distance between the rod and the surveyor level is measured, and the materials shift accordingly with an increment of four feet with each measurement. Repeat from step