Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Why wasn't our ecosystem-in-a-bottle successful?

Organisms we kept in a 4-liter bottle over a period of 4 weeks: cone snails, waterplants, bloodworms, land snails, earthworms, terrestrial plants, roly-poly, and a spider.



The terrestrial ecosystem was stacked on top of the aquatic ecosystem, and evaporation from the aqua. ecosystem was supposed to keep the terrestrial ecosystem.



Here's what died:

One cone snail, bloodworms, terrestrial plants, roly-poly, spider.



We were supposed to have some diversity, hence the number and kinds of organisms. Why did some organisms die? What could we have done to keep more organisms alive?

Why wasn't our ecosystem-in-a-bottle successful?
First thing did you keep this system very wet. The animals you picked needed a lot of water. If you let it get too dry that's one reason they died. What did you have in there for them to eat? Some of these ate rotted vegetation, spiders eat other animals, bloodworms are a fly larvae and need to develop into flies. Poor choice of organisms. The plants needed water, sunlight and most of all a good root system. Did they have a good set of roots when you put them in?

Make sure you really simulate a working ecosystem and not just put whatever you can find. These organisms depend on each other for food and other essential needs.


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