Download Marine Biome Assignment (You may work in pairs)

Marine Biome Assignment (You may work in pairs)
Use Google apps to create slideshow and doc (www.gnspes.ca--login with your email).
What you need to do:
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All info must be in your own words.
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Develop one page of key facts about your biome written in student-friendly language (this can
be made using info from your PowerPoint, or vice versa)
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Develop a PowerPoint-style presentation to explain the community to your class
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Include diagrams, definitions of key words, and images to make your ideas clear
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Use many of the terms on the sheet
Biome Project: Guiding questions
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Where is the biome located? (Where in the ocean and where in the world? A map might be
useful here, what oceanic zone and province)
What abiotic features make it unique (tidal zone, high pressure, lack of sunlight, temperature,
etc.) Explain to us what the environment is like, and how it affects the living things.
What living things (biotic features) are in your ecosystem?
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What role do the living things play (what do they eat, what eats them?) Focus on the
relationships among organisms. What are the autotrophs? What are the heterotrophs? What
eats what?
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What adaptations to the environment have the organisms made?
Make use of terms on the back of your sheet (autotroph, etc.) So that you are using scientific
terms—but be sure you understand them.
The Big picture:
Question: What sorts of communities do marine organisms form?
Background
Organisms are distributed throughout the marine biome in specific communities—groups of
interacting producers, consumers, and decomposers that share a common living space. The
location of each community and the types of organisms that make up this community depend on
the physical (abiotic) and biological (biotic) characteristics of that living space.
Communities are dynamic, adjusting and adapting as their residents respond to environmental
fluctuations. The relative number of species and individuals in a community depends in part on
whether their environment is relatively easy and free of stressors or relatively hard and full of
potential limiting factors.
Your job as a group of marine biologists is to choose one of the predominant marine
communities listed below, research this community, and present your findings to your fellow
marine biologists (your classmates). Be creative with your presentation. In groups of three or
four, choose a marine community and inform your teacher of your choice.
The marine communities are the following:
1. Rocky shore intertidal
2. Rocky shore subtidal
3. Mud flat
4. Estuary
5. Deep sea floor
6. Hydrothermal vent
7. Sandy beach
8. Cobble beach
9. Salt marsh
10. Mangrove forest
11. Open ocean
12. Coral reef
Key terms, many of which should be used appropriately in your project.:
• abiotic
• adaptation
• aphotic
• autotroph
• biomass
• biotic
• carnivore
• carrying capacity
• commensalism
• community habitat
• competition
• consumer
• decomposer
• ecosystem
• efficiency
• fauna
• flora
• food web
• food chain
• food pyramid
• herbivore
• heterotroph
• human impact
• interconnected
• mutualism
• niche
• nutrients
• parasitism
• photic
• pollution
• population
• predation
• producer
• productivity
• run-off
• scavenger
• sewage effect
• symbiosis
• trophic level