Terrestrial Autotrophs in the Forest Ecosystem

This assignment is designed to be completed and submitted at the end of your lab. This assignment should be saved as 1108L-AF-Lastname-Firstinitial.docx. It is your responsibility to ensure that you have answered every question and submitted the correct file. Today’s lab is on terrestrial autotrophs in the forest ecosystem. Read through Background Information and Lab Activity information and answer the questions below. Compare and contrast the energy flow and chemical cycling of a terrestrial ecosystem with an aquatic ecosystem. (2 pts) Between terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, they have very similar systems, but the differences can be compared. For energy flow, both systems use a food chain, but the difference between the two is dependent on the organisms that are involved. Photosynthesis in the aquatic ecosystem relies more on microbes, but in terrestrial they rely more on plants. For the Chemical cycle, aquatic ecosystems absorb through membranes, but the terrestrial ecosystem uses their roots. In the water, the chemical cycle surrounds aquatic life at all times almost like a “chemical soup”. What challenges meeting their life needs would organisms face moving from an aquatic environment to a terrestrial one? (2pts) Aquatic life would not survive on land. They would lack natural oxygen intake because they use their gills to filter it through the water. The heat from the land would affect the aquatic life and the colder temperatures of the water would affect the land animals. Land animals might not be able to swim, and aquatic life might not be able to walk. Examine the moss specimen and slide at your bench. What structures do you notice? What other observations can you make? (2pts) The moss has string-like structures branching from a root that has the leaves attached. Very small plant structure that looks like it grows randomly. Our sample has a lot of dirt connected to the roots making me think that the roots are probably a strong and larger structure. The leaves look fuzzy and curly. Under the microscope, one of the samples you can see the membrane structures and the cell walls of the plant cells. a) Fill out the table below with your observations of the cobalt chloride strips. (2 pts) Pothos Pothos Spider plant Leaf Top Cobalt Chloride Observations Leaf Top Leaf Bottom Very light purple hue within the original blue Very light purple hue within the original blue Spider plant Leaf Bottom Not much change on the top, Slight green tint slight green tinge but mainly with a pinkish to the starting blue. it. The spider plant had a pinker hue than the pothos. The Pothos was a purple hue instead. The colors were more shown on the bottom of the plant, this could be because of the more stomata underneath. The underside is also shaded, plants breathe more at night than the drying out of the sun and the light. Explain how the structures of the terrestrial autotrophs you have observed enable them to overcome the challenges of terrestrial life. (2pts) Having more stomata on the underside of the plant can be helpful to plants to overcome the challenge of the hot sun. Having an underneath that is shaded from the sunlight allows the plant to still thrive while the sun is trying to dry it out. Review the Scientific Article: Fote and Mutiti, 2017, then focus on the Results section. Refer to Fig. 3 and, using your own words, describe your interpretation of the data displayed. (2pt) The figure looks at the concentration of metals in the different parts of a plant organism. The different parts were the soil, leaves, and stem. They were comparing the different uptake of Cu on different parts of a plant from the CuOx treatment compared to a control group. From the research, they found there was more uptake in the soil than anywhere else. They also compared this to Pb uptake and that rolled out the same results. The soil was the main uptake for each Cu and Pb.