Biology
Michigan Merit CurriculumStandards
B3.2A Identfiy how energy is stored in an ecosystem.
B3.2B Describe energy transfer through an ecosystem, accounting for energy lost to the environment as heat.
B3.2C Draw the flow of energy through an ecosystem. Predict changes in the food web when one or more organisms are removed.
B3.3A Use a food web to identify and distinguish producers, consumers, and decomposers and explain the transfer of energy through trophic levels.
B3.3b Describe environmental processes and their role in processing matter crucial for sustaining life.
B3.4A Describe ecosystem stability. Understand that if a disaster such as flood or fire occurs, the damaged ecosystem is likely to recover in stages of succession that eventually result in a system similar to the original one.
B3.4C Examine the negative impact of human activies.
B3.5B Explain the influences that affect population growth.
B3.5C Predict the consequences of an invading organism on the survival of other organisms.
B3.5e Recognize that and describe how the physical or chemical environment may influence the rate, extent, and nature of population dynamics within ecosystems.
B4.2A Show that when mutations occur in sex cells, they can be passed on to offspring (inherited mutations), but if they occur in other cells, they can be passed on to descendant cells only (noninherited mutations).
Pine River Monitoring Project Application to Biology Standards
The Pine River and its tributaries are examples of ecosystems. Energy source is predominantly sunlight and is stored in plant material (algae) and organisms. Energy of stream flow is also important.
Energy transfer occurs in multiple ways, but primarily as follows: Sunlight --> algae --> micro-organisms (macroinvertebrates-larvae) --> fishes. As eutrophication occurs, point out the relationships between energy and nutrients - energy with few nutrients produces fewer algae, high nutrients with same energy = overproduction.
How are organisms affected by the different parameters measured in teh PRMP, i.e. DO? Organisms die if overnitrogenated or low DO. Eutrophication and/or pollution from various sources reduces the amount of organisms. How does this affect energy flow and balance? Where is (sun) energy going when algae die--to detritus feeders and decomposers. This can be measured in macroinvertebrate study in conjunction with geochemical data.
Macroinvertebrate assessment of streams and tributaries. How does a stream's macroinvertebrate assessment speak to the relative health of the stream?
Use the streams as a focus for discussing nitrogen, carbon and phosphorus cycles. Identify inputs of nitrogen, carbon and phosphorus that are natural...and unnatural.
Compare the different tributaries within the Pine River. Compare different places along the Pine River itself. Compare tributaries themselves, i.e. upstream/downstream and see if there is impact and recovery.
In what ways is industrial agriculture, urbanization and other anthropogenic inputs affecting stream health? Agricultural impacts will be different from industrial impacts. How do we separate these and make sense of it?
Focus on algal blooms/growth and macroinvertebrate assessment.
Population dynamics can be studied in the following ways: (a) Algal blooms and die-offs due to nutrient loading
(b) Changes in or comparisons of macroinvertebrates in reference to the geochemical and physical nature of the stream as it is measured throughout the year.
Explain if the mutations found in the fish near the superfund site will be passed down to the following generations of fish.
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