1.)    We as a group personally feel that our eco-column was relatively successful at being an ecosystem. There were some reasons why we felt it was not as effective as it could possibly be at being an ecosystem but there are very few of these reasons, and over all we felt it achieved the points which classify it an ecosystem. Some of these points are that both the Abiotic and biotic components were able to interact with each other effectively. We also found that our worms and snails survived surprisingly long and we had breeding of fruit flies in our decomposition zone. It is also classified as an ecosystem because we have developed a nutrient cycle and whatever water or nutrients are given out is put straight back in, this helps keep them within the ecosystem. Also our fruit flies interacted with our ecosystem by eating the decomposing fruit and helping the process. We all feel that it is because of these reasons that we can call our eco-column an ecosystem.

2.)    Building this eco-column has helped us see how the Abiotic and biotic components have had to interact with each other to survive and without interaction the eco-column would not survive optimally. Also an animal in the eco-column cannot contribute to the survival of the eco-column without the animal putting back into the nutrient cycle. Also naturally the animals will automatically put back into the eco-column.

3.)    We all feel that we work very well as a group but were not as efficient with our time as we could have been. We were relatively effective with allocating each member of our group tasks, but we were not always completely fair about the allocation of those tasks. We sometimes found it difficult when we were allocated two tasks and had to share it out amongst our 3 members.

4.)    A huge amount of time an effort was put into the designing of our blog and in finding a very aesthetic layout. Although we has some feed back early on that the green writing for our blog archive was very hard to read against our green background.  For our blog we decided to stick to a greeny type of theme due to it being related to ecology and plants, and we all feel that just this theme alone conveys the subject of this project. Almost every single image in our blog has a caption which accurately describes its context. Each post is written and layed out in the most formal way possible and any spelling errors have been corrected. The writing of the posts was evenly shared out and the checking and posting onto the blog was done by Christopher Mailer due to him being the blog administrator. We feel that due to all of this effort and time our blog should be very aesthetic and a pleasure to read.

Our predictions on how our eco-column would survive over the 3 week period

At the beginning of the 3 week period

We predicted that our Terra zone would not survive an that all the plant and animals in that zone would die due to it not having a sufficient supply of water. Our decomposition zone had more than enough substances to decompose and we predicted that it should survive very well over the 3 week period. All of the plants and animals in our aqua zone had died very quickly due to the lack of oxygen in the aqua zone. This means that there was only water left in the aqua zone which we presumed would survive the holiday apart from slightly overflowing.

• Images of the 3 zones before the holiday

The decomposition zone

The Terra zone

The Aqua  zone

At the end of the 3 week period

All of our predictions were more or less very accurate and consistent, this could be due to some factors which were easy to calculate affecting our eco-column in the way which we predicted. Except not all the plants in our terra zone died, only the wheat grass which we presume is very water dependent  The Aqua zone stayed more or less the same apart from becoming extremely full and the decomposition zone was able to decompose everything which we had left for it at the beginning of the holidays.

Decomposition zone

 Terra zone

 Aqua zone

Reflections on the terms work

Our eco column was a success as it was self sustaining. The food chains all worked and so the biotic factors were able to survive without assistance/help, besides the plants as we had to water our plants quite often, although this water could act as rain, as we did not water out plants every day. Our eco column looked good as we chose wheat grass as one of our plants which grows very fast and is very green, we also added melon to our decomposition zone which has bright colours and so the eco columns visual impact was great. The building of the eco-column also went smoothly and our eco-column was up with all the stuff inside of it quite quickly.

              Bright Fruit                                                         Green Plants

                                                                        

	Questions 2 of post 3 on blog 3 will be on Chris Mailers post

Our group did work well together. We all brought what we needed to; when we were building our eco-column. The looking after of the eco column was done by only 2 of us though. Our Blog was an accurate reflection of what we have learnt and how we worked together. Everything we put in our blog was real; we didn’t take pictures of other groups’ eco columns and put it in our blog. We learnt more about the smaller factors which go on in an eco system and how some factors such as water play a big role in life.

Eco-column as an ecosystem

Definition of an eco-column

A biological community of interacting organisms and their physical environment.

                     

There are 3 things that show that our eco column is an ecosystem.

·        The abioitc factors

·        The biotic factors

·        The food chains in the eco column

Abiotic

We have abiotic factors such as soil, water and light. These are all resources that our plants and insects can use to survive.

Soil                                                                                                          Water

 

Our plants use the water and nutrients in the rich soil to grow. The water plants live in the water and so they have no problem growing.

Biotic

Our biotic factors include wheat grass, a fern, pond weed, snails, fruit flies, tiny water snails, aphids and a small spider.

                Snail                                                                                          Aphid

Fruit Flies

Food Chains

Wheat Grass/FernàAphidsàSpider

Rotting FruitàFruit Flies/SnailsàFungi

This shows that our eco-column is definitely an ecosystem as we have biotic factors which share the resources in the column between them and they interact with each other by eating one another. These biotic factors also interact with the abiotic factors to survive.

We carefully examined all of the zone of our eco-column for any forms of life, the only habitable zones in our eco-column are the Terra zone and partially the Decomposition zone.

In the Terra Zone we still have the worms which we original placed in the zone, but we sadly have no images of the actual worms.

In the decomposition zone there is a huge amount of fruit flies and some small forms of worms. The fruit flies have also laid small bead like eggs on the bottle lid in that zone.

Sadly our Aqua zone has become extremely smelly and it has an extremely high PH or acidity level. It is also staying still which stops any forms of oxygenation, killing all life forms.

In this image you can see small tunnels against the side of the bottle which have been made from the 4 worms which we placed in the eco-column when we constructed it.

here is the data which we have collected from our eco-column
(they were all conducted at least 2 days apart):

The PH level in the aqua zone (according to the PH level scale) :
Sample 1: 3
Sample 2: 3
Sample 3: 3

The Temperature of the aqua zone (Degrees Celsius) :
Test 1: 21
Test 2: 19
Test 3: 20

The height of the highest plant (centimeters) :
Test 1: 16
Test 2: 19
Test 3: 29


Here are 2 images showing the height difference in the plant

Here is a picture of eggs on the end of the bottle in the decomposition zone. We are not sure what type of animal this is but we think it might be the fruit flies.

This is a sample of water from our aqua Zone. As you can see there is a squiggly line where the pointer is pointing to. This is in fact a fragment of our river weed. This river weed is slightly rough and it is brown. Our water in our aqua zone is a light brown colour and it really stinks. This shows that the colour from our river weed is being dissolved into the water. Our water had also changed colour due to the melon rotting and all the juices have gone through to the aqua zone, this is also the reason why the the waster stinks so much.

Our soil is rich with lots of air holes and water. Our wheat grass seeds that we planted have grown extremely well due to the fact that they have the right nutrients and water from the soil. There are roots from the wheat grass and the small fern that we put in. We have seen some small insects crawling in the holes of the soil.We have not been able to identify them as they are small and we cannot see them clearly due to them being in the soil. 

We have seen some dead fruit flies on the top of the soil in the decomposition zone. Our fruit flies have also layed eggs on the bottle cap inside the decomposition zone.

This is a picture showing the initial growth in the terra zone in our Eco-column. This was taken a few days after planting the seeds. as you can see there has not been very much growth.

this picture was taken after about 2 and a half weeks of growth. as you can see, it is significantly higher than the previous picture and the highest plant measures 19cm.

This is an annotated diagram of how we planned to layout our eco-collumn

Is our Eco-column self-sustaining or not?

Here are some of the reasons why our eco-column is not self sustaining

• organisms in the aqua zone would not be able to survive because the water is not oxygenated.
• we have to keep on adding to the decomposition zone as it will eventual run out
• the environment is not large enough and does not have the right factors to sustain multiple life forms
• because it is unable to sustain multiple life forms we cannot have a sufficient food chain in the eco column

Here are some reasons why we fee our eco-column could be self-sustaining

• we use the water which overflows out of our aqua zone to water the terra zone, thus putting nutrients back into the eco-column and keeping the cycle of energy going.
• water which evaporates out of the soil in our eco-column condenses on the top of the bottles and falls back into it.

Here are some images of the construction of our eco-column

Here is a picture of our stacked eco-column and filtration system all stacked with the stand except we have not placed any abiotic or boitic factors in our eco-column.

Here is a picture of how we cut the bottle lids for our filtration system, the glue we used and the pipe we used for our drainage system in the aqua zone.

Here is the stacked eco-column with the filtration system and soil.

Here is a image of our aqua zone in our eco-column. we used river water so that it would already have sufficient nutrients to sustain life forms. we also place some simple pond weed in this zone but sadly it will not last very long as the water is not being oxygenated and this plant relies on oxygenated water. if we wanted to oxygenate the water we would either have to install a pump or find some way of keeping the water moving. we also have water snails in our aqua zone but they will also die due to the lack of oxygen in the water.

 

Here is a close up of our decomposition zone, in it we place bananas, banana peels, cut up pieces of melon skin, pieces of melon and old cut grass. to start off the decomposition process we placed already rotting fuit in the eco-column which already had flies and fruit flies and mould. 

This is another image of our decomposition zone, you can see all of the rotting elements which we have placed in our eco column. we have also got a gecko in the decomp. zone, but sadly it is not vissible in this image. it lives off of the insects and flies in that zone. sadly the environment is not big enough for it to sustain the geckoes life sufficiently so it will not live its full lifespan. There are also some very nice examples of mould growing in this zone.

 

here is a close-up image of our plants growing in terra zone. we used a mixture of fertilizer and garden soil to aid the growth of our plants. we also have 3 worms in this zone and you can see some of their tunnels allong the wall of the eco-collumn.

Here is another large image of our terra zone and you can see the sprouts very clearly and our fern which was the same level as the bottle when we started. due to the small amount of soil in the zone, sadly the fern will not be able to grow to its full capacity.

We aim to answer the following questions on our eco-column.

·        Do you have an annotated diagram of your ecosystem (eco column)

·        What is your reasoning for coming up with this design

·        Collection of materials-what have you put in and why?

·        Is it self-sustaining

·        What a biotic factors will affect the ecosystem

·        What data will you collect in term of a biotic factors

·        Where are you placing your eco-column in the class

·        Maybe have a checklist on the above when assessing your blog.

·        Use a 0-5 scale

·        Do you need to get in and out of your ecosystem and why?

Here is a very good drawing of how our eco-column should be laid out.

Did some research and found that to stop water building up in your decomposition zone (which seems to be the main problem) you must build it so that the filter end of the bottle is as close as possible to the soil in the decomposition zone. if it is low, the water will only rise to the end of the ottle lid and no further which stops water building up and keeps it in the first zone. 

Found a very nice link with some fantastic designs for Eco-columns and other bottle garden's and experiments.

Here is the link: Bottle biology