By: Ariel White Period 2 biology

What is Homeostasis? Homeostasis is the stable internal conditions of a living thing. When there is a change in the environment, the organism also has to change in order to maintain homeostasis

What genetic background helps and organism maintain homeostasis? Cell membranes are what help organisms maintain homeostasis. This is controlled by the cell membranes controlling what substances enter or leave. There are two types of transport that affect homeostasis, passive transport and active transport.

Passive Transport Passive transport is the movement of substances that can cross the cell membrane without any input of energy by the cell. The simplest type of passive transport is diffusion.

Diffusion Diffusion is the movement of molecules from an area of higher concentration to an area of lower concentration.

Active Transport Active transport occurs in cases where cells have to move their materials up to an area of higher concentration from an area of lower concentration.

Ecology Ecology is the study of how organisms interact in their environments. This is important to homeostasis because in a situation where an organism goes extinct, it’s role will determine whether or not other species will be able to maintain homeostasis.

8 Factors affecting Organisms Biotic Factors: These are any living things that affect an organism, including species interaction. Abiotic Factors: These are non living things that affect an organism, this includes temperature, humidity, pH, etc. So climate change is an abiotic factor. 8

Current Issues The sudden explosion is greatly affecting the environment. Our sudden growth and need for more resources is causing species to go extinct and greatly affecting ecosystems all over the world. Climate changes are definitely demonstrating evolution and natural selection at work. The animals who are able to tolerate global warming are surviving and those who can’t are dying off.

Species Interaction Species interaction, or symbiosis, is key to who survives and who doesn’t. Predators hunt prey. The predators tend to be adapted to hunt and the prey learn to adapt to avoid being hunted to survive. Prey techniques include camouflage, being poisonous, and looking like other poisonous organisms. The next interaction is plant-herbivore. This interaction is just where an animal eats plants.

Another interaction is parasitism. In this situation you have parasites that feed on a victim called the host. This would include bacteria feeding on an animal. The final two interactions are mutualism, a cooperative relationship both organisms benefit in, and commensalism, a relationship where one species benefits and the other isn’t affected.

Levels of Organization There are several levels of organization that an organism falls into; Organism, Population, Community, Ecosystem, and Biosphere. When an organism goes extinct if affects everyone. For example lets say algae goes extinct. The organism that eats the algae will go extinct because its food source will be gone so the predator that eats that organism will go extinct and so on. It is for this reason that ecology is key to homeostasis.

Healthy Ecosystems What is a healthy ecosystem? A solid ecosystem has a large variety of species with multiple food sources and a large number of those species. That way in a situation where an organism goes extinct it won’t affect the other organisms in its ecosystem as much.

Experiment Now I have given the audience same background information, it is time to look at the main point of this project. I decided to do an experiment and compare different micro-organism ecosystems. The majority of the remainder of this power point will discuss the experiment, show the results, and explain how it ties into homeostasis.

Procedure  Collect water samples from the large pond at Central Park in Stapleton, An old farm pond in Stapleton, Westerly Creek, tap water, and bottled water.  Take a dropper and place on a microscope slide.  Observe and record the organisms that are seen through the microscope, using a organism identification sheet printed from the internet.  After all samples are observed and all photos are taken record the abiotic factors and biotic factors from all of the “ecosystem

 Observe the results and determine which ecosystem is the healthiest  Explain how this experiment ties into homeostasis and the environment.

17 Results Here is a photo of Svnura from Westerly Creek. As you can see this sample had few bacteria. 17

18 Here is more bacteria from Westerly creek. This is species is so small I couldn’t tell what it is from my microscope. 18

19 Another sample from Westerly Creek, which appears to be another Svnura. 19

20 This sample is from a farm pond in the Stapleton Neighborhood in Denver. This sample had Svnura, Diatom, and what appears to be either Chilomonas, Phacus, or Peranema. 20

21 Here is another photo from the farm pond. 21

22 This final photo is from The Central Park Pond. There is only Svnura in this sample, but there are many of this species. 22

23 I also took samples from Tap water and bottled water. However, there were no visible organisms in either sample. 23

24 Data 24 LocationTemperatureAnimal life/wasteman made sanitary procedure Westerly CreekColdestFew; fish, frogsNo Central Park Pond ColdQuite a bit; geese, frogs, fish No Stapleton Farm Pond Cold but milderTons; Marmots fish, geese, frogs No Tap WaterFairly WarmNoneYes Bottled WaterFairly WarmNoneYes

25 How does this experiment relate to Homeostasis? This experiment relates in several ways. First lets look at the abiotic factors. The temperatures these water samples were taken from were all different. Westerly Creek was the coldest, followed by Central Park, and finally the Farm Pond. Bacteria survive in warmer water, which is why the Farm Pond was the most diverse. Next was sanitation and the biotic factors. More animals lived in the Farm Pond than Westerly Creek or Central Park Pond. This means that more waste is produced, which lowers sanitation levels, which is where bacteria 25

26 prefer to be, thus making the Farm Pond the best habitat for bacteria. And finally, chlorine wasn’t used in Westerly Creek, Farm Pond, or Central Park Pond, where as it was in the tap water. There also wasn’t any sanitation procedures done to Westerly Creek, Central Park Pond, or the Farm Pond, like in the bottled water. It is for these reasons that the bottled water and tap water had no life forms in them. 26

27 Conclusion Out of all the sample habitats taken, the one from the Farm Pond was by far the healthiest ecosystem. 27

28 Project Wrap Up During the time spent on this project I learned a lot about homeostasis, how it is kept, and all about the environment. I hope the audience viewing this power point also learned a lot about this topic and enjoyed exploring it as much as I did. Thank You! 28

29 The End; Resources ecosystmes.html for the experiment idea and bacteria identification sheet ecosystmes.html Modern Biology Text book for the background research 29