Carolina Beach, at 25 degrees Fahrenheit, with 13.9 mph winds. We were walking on the pier and as being my third year here at UNCW I wondered if this was the normal for Wilmington this time of the year due to not remembering it ever being this cold. After some research, I looked back at weather last year on the same day at the same location and the average was 34 degrees Fahrenheit. Also, I looked at the prediction for next year and it also said that the average is predicted to be 34 degrees Fahrenheit as well. I found it very interesting that the temperature can rise from 25◦F to 64◦F in only 5 days. I concluded like stated in class that this was not out of the norm for Wilmington. Here is the link for where this came from information, www.accuweather.com/en/us/wilmington-nc/28401/january-wea....

#UNCW #ecology #bio366 #uncwteal #semesterenrolled-SP2018 #image1

This is a juvenile longleaf pine (Pinus palustris Mill.) it has just gotten past the point of the grass like state. Longleaf pines are able to stay in the grass state for many years, the advantage to staying in the grass state is that the needles are so tightly bounded that they will not die in a wildfire. The needles that are burnt off will grow back quickly. During the grass state the longleaf pine will focus on its’ root system, there have been cases of longleaf pines staying in this state up to 20 years. On average though they stay in the grass state for 5 to 15 years. This photo is in the “bottlebrush” stage this process happens in just a few months because the tree wants to get past the place where it would be killed in a fire. This state will last a few years and it is when the tree is at its’ most vulnerable state. The habitats that they are best suited for are: montane, sandhill, rolling hill, and flatwoods/savannas. High densities of adult longleaf pine trees can suppress juvenile growth indirectly by increasing many pathogens. Yet, the reason that longleaf are able to be dominate is due to the fire resistance juvenile like this one. There is lots of evidence that the trees are in “discrete clumps”. Throughout our walk in the woods each time we saw a juvenile there was always another one close by. There was one clump of about 15 longleaf pines in the bottlebrush state all together.

longleafalliance.org/what-is-longleaf/the-tree

www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/2261152.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3...

This photo was taken early this morning in my back yard, it is a section on the side of my house where moss completely covers all the soil we used to have over there. Mosses typically live anywhere that provides moisture and nutrients and can be easily dispersed since they spread asexually, pieces of the moss body can break of and move by wind or water and start a new plant. Moss is ecologically important as well as economically important; it can be used in various ways and has many benefits that I will talk about. Moss is economically important because it can be sold as food/fertilizer for other organisms and crops, which provides them with nutrients. Farmers/gardeners can also use it for making their soil fertile and use it as a “pesticide” because moss typically taste bad to common insect pest or bugs. We could use moss to help reduce air pollution; they clean our air and don’t need to be mowed so that would avoid the air pollution produced by mowers that millions of people use across the world. Some more ecological benefits of moss are that they’re used for erosion control that support in moisture control and stabilize soil that could be washed away by water or blown by the wind. Mosses occupy an ecological niche in certain ecosystems where it provides nitrogen fixation as well.

I took this photo behind UNCW, my friends and I buried potatoes the Friday before spring break. So this is three week after being buried. As you can see there are roots coming out of it as well the skin has degraded a significant amount. It has also lost a lot of its' coloring. I feel like this is a great example of decomposition and Nutrient cycling.

Of course I had to look into how long it would take for potatoes to grow. The research I did showed that it normally takes 3 to 4 weeks, also to bury pieces or whole potatoes 4 inches deep.

harvesttotable.com/how_to_grow_potatoes/

I was very curious after seeing the little decomposition of the potato, how fast other thing degrade. So I what I found was a tin can takes about 50 years to decompose and about cardboard about 2 months to decompose.

www.thebalance.com/how-long-does-it-take-garbage-to-decom...

Most people are terrified of the small arachnids that create these beautiful webs, but they are essential to ecological communities. This individual is responsible for regulating the insect population and plays a large role in controlling the pests found in farmers' crops. I did not catch a glance of the spider when I took this shot, but I took several minutes to study this beautiful creation. A spider's silk web is used to catch insects, and they can detect when a bug has been caught through the emitted vibrations in the web. Although it doesn't seem like one individual spider is very important to several ecosystems, a population of spiders is crucial when it comes to managing different species of insects.

I took this picture today April 17th and 11:03am. It’s a picture of my garden where I have some herbs as well as vegetables. Gardens play such a huge ecological role in the world and do a lot of good. For instance, gardens can contribute to natural function such as water regulation providing food and shelter for native wildlife and keep pollinators going and encourage biodiversity over time. The structure and design of the garden can determine what wildlife species come to visit. A large range of flowering plants, with different bloom times throughout the seasons, are essential for native pollinators, whose numbers are steeply declining due to habitat loss. Which ties into how living organisms require energy to do basic functions that prompt growth. Plants help plant produce that energy through the sun and turns it into chemical energy through photosynthesis. This energy flow relates to the ecological process.

This picture was taken on my back porch on January 24th 2018. Pictured is a millipede, its one of the least studied animal groups on Earth as well as being some of the oldest known land animals. They have a huge ecological role, which plays an important part in decomposition of leaf litter. Leaf litter contains leaves, rotten wood, rocks and other debris on top of soil. If millipedes aren’t in a moist environment they will die. So during the day millipedes are crawling around under the leaf litter where it’s moist. So they help spread nutrients throughout the soil and are beneficial in breaking down decaying plant matter. The downfall is that millipedes will eat certain fruits lying around on the ground such as in gardens.

This photo was taken on

Friday, January 19, 2018. This wild blackberry vine was growing in a Dwarf Burford Holly shrub (Ilex cornuta "Burfodii Nana") outside of the suite services building on the campus of UNCW. Notice that the vine from the blackberry plant has small sharp thorns on it. This is the plants natural defense against predators that want to eat its fruit and plant material. The vine could also be using the dense holly shrub as shelter from predators such as birds. It can be assumed that if the predatory element was eliminated, the thorns would eventually go away by process of evolution.

I took a photo of this amazing creature at North Carolina Zoo in Asheboro over spring break on March 9th. The polar bear is at the top of the food chain. There are three levels in food webs; basal species, intermediate species and top predators. He would be a top predator, also his functional response is type 1. Functional response is the relationship between per capital of consumption and the number of prey. Type 1 has a consumption rate that is constant. The reasons for that are passive predators, sit and wait or ambush, and all their time is spent feeding/ searching.

Polar bears are not effected by many parasites but they are affected by a few like Trichinella, roundworm. These species have a parasitic relationship. The polar bear is its' intermediate host.

There are also some viruses that have been detected in polar bears like, canine distemper, dolphin morbillivirus, phocine distemper, and porpoise morbillivirus. "Scientists believe that some polar bears will be more susceptible to disease due to the cumulative stresses of reduced prey opportunities from climate change, combined with a weakened immune system from pollution." Also global warming is causing the ice caps to melt which kills many young polar bears due to not being able to swim as long.

polarbearsinternational.org/climate-change/disease/