text from vtaide - 6th grade comrehensive science€¦ · various marine animals, including whales....
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HONEYPOT ANTS GET FOOD FROM THE APHIDS BY "MILKING" THEM FOR THEIR
SWEET HONEYDEW SECRETIONS. THE APHIDS ARE BEING PROTECTED BY THE ANTS WHICH WILL AGGRESSIVELY PROTECT THEM
FROM THEIR ENEMIES (SUCH AS LADY BUGS) AND MAY MOVE THEM ONTO NEW
PLANTS TO FEED ON PLANT SAP AS THE OLD ONES WITHER.
STATION 1
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STATION 2
• Otters often float and sleep on forests of kelp (giant, brown seaweed) in which they entangle themselves to provide anchorage in the swirling sea. In return, the otters eat the sea urchins which feed on the kelp.
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STATION 2 VIDEO
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASJ82wyHisE
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STATION 3
• An army of bed bugs can attack a person 500 times in one night! They produce a distinctive smell when squashed.
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STATION 3
• Read more about bed bugs below:
• https://www.epa.gov/bedbugs/how-find-bed-bugs
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STATION 4
• Barnacles need a place to anchor and then wait for food to come their way. Some barnacles attached to the skin of a whale are transported to new sources of food. The whale is neither harmed nor benefits from the barnacles.
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HOW DO BARNACLES ATTACH TO WHALES? THE FOLLOWING IS AN
EXCERPT FROM HTTPS://SCIENCELINE.ORG/2010/03/HOW-DO-BARNACLES-ATTACH-TO-WHALES/
• For a hungry barnacle, the rim of a baleen whale’s nostril isn’t a terrible place to be. When the whale swims through a cloud of plankton for a meal, the barnacle — which also feeds on the tiny, floating organisms — gets free table service. All it has to do is extend its feathery, filtering arm and wait.
• Barnacles regularly colonize the skin of filter-feeding whales, and they often do so in huge numbers —one humpback whale, for instance, can host almost 1,000 pounds of barnacles. (That may sound burdensome, but relative to a humpback’s nearly 80,000-pound body, it’s about as much extra weight as summer clothing on a human being.)
• Whale-bound barnacles aren’t just regular barnacles with wanderlust; they’re different species, most of them unique to the brand of whale they piggyback on. The barnacle Coronula diadema lives only on humpback whale skin, for example, while gray whales host one called Cryptolepas rhachianecti.¹
• So how does a barnacle get onto a whale in the first place? Like other stationary marine invertebrates, barnacles begin their lives as larvae — tiny, shell-less swimmers that find a place to settle and develop into the sturdy barnacles we know. Easy enough when all you want to stick to is an immobile rock, but a whale?
• “We don’t really know how they’re doing it,” said John Zardus, a marine biologist at The Citadel military college in Charleston, South Carolina. For the last six years, Zardus has studied the barnacles that live on various marine animals, including whales. “These microscopic larvae that are swimming around in this huge ocean — how do they find a whale? … It just seems preposterous, actually.”
• Research on whale barnacles is scarce, according to Zardus, because they’re not the easiest beasts to get a hold of. The larvae are small and difficult to distinguish from other kinds of barnacle larvae, and the adults are so deeply embedded in the skin of their hosts that they have to be carved out, flesh and all. Zardus only gets samples to study when there’s a dead, stranded whale he can take a chunk from —but if he takes too long to get to it, the barnacles will be dead, too.
• Marine biologists speculate that the barnacles reproduce during the whales’ breeding season, when the whales mill around in warm, shallow waters rather than moving through the open ocean. If that’s true, Zardus said, the whales would swim in a thick soup of larvae; each barnacle parent can release anywhere from 10,000 to 20,000 spawn, and they survive for several weeks in the water. When a whale does swim by, research suggests, the drifting larvae pick up a chemical signal that tells them to hop on.²
• There’s plenty of space to squat on a whale, but barnacles are picky. They like spots where the flow of water is consistent, Zardus explained, like the head or the fins. So instead of settling wherever they land, the larvae use their front antennae to “walk” around the whale in search of prime real estate. And that’s no easy stroll: if a barnacle larva were the size of a person, a whale would be over 20 miles long. Luckily, the larvae produce a sticky cement that keeps them from falling off into the ocean during their trek.
• “They may walk over the whale for a long time until they find the place they’re looking for,” Zardus said. “It’s not random.”
• Once they’re satisfied with their location, the barnacles dig in — literally. As they mature into adults, they form tube-shaped cavities in their shells that actually draw in prongs of growing whale skin. The result is an attachment as firmly rooted as the most pernicious weed.
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STATION 5
• Mistletoe extracts water and nutrients from the oak tree to the tree's detriment.
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ARTICLE FROM HTTPS://MODERNFARMER.COM/2017/12/OH-HO-MISTLETOE-ACTUALLY-PARASITE/
• What sort of plant is it?
• Mistletoe is definitely not your typical shrub – it’s a parasite that attacks living trees. Technically, mistletoes – there are over 1,000 species found throughout the world to which botanists ascribe the name – are actually hemi-parasites. This means they obtain a portion of their energy through photosynthesis, and the rest is extracted from other plants. Mistletoe species have evolved to plant themselves on hosts ranging from pine trees to cacti, but the species most commonly associated with European-based mistletoe mythologies are typically found on large deciduous trees, like oaks.
• Does mistletoe kill its hosts?
• It can, eventually. The plant sends its tiny roots into the bark’s cambium layer, where it siphons off water and nutrients, slowly weakening the tree. A mature tree can withstand a small amount of mistletoe with no problem, but if it spreads profusely the tree will eventually die, one limb at a time, as the life is literally sucked out of it. However, mistletoe doesn’t take out whole forests like some diseases – just a tree here and there. Ecologists actually view mistletoe as an important part of a healthy ecosystem, as the berries are a major food source for birds, who also find the dense foliage useful for nesting – and the dead trees become purchase for raptors.
• How does it get up in trees to begin with?
• Mistletoe reproduces by seeds, just like any other plant, but has evolved special adaptations to keep its seeds from falling to the ground, where they would be unable to sprout and develop into a mature plant. If you squeeze open the whitish semi-translucent berries – by the way, don’t eat the fruit, as some species are poisonous – you’ll find that the seeds are incredibly sticky. They are covered with a glue-like substance called viscin, so they stick to whatever they fall on. They mostly fall on branches high up in trees because the berries are a favorite wintertime snack for birds, who then excrete the seeds where they roost.
• How did the Christmas connection come about?
• Historians are fuzzy on the matter, but it seems that mistletoe’s association with fertility and ritual and wintertime slowly morphed into the modern Christmas tradition. It makes sense that mistletoe, with its evergreen foliage and attractive red berries, would be brought indoors as decoration during the barren winter months, just as people do with fir boughs and holly branches.
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STATION 6
• Frogs Shelter Under Plants
• Many frogs, like the poison dart frog and the Gaudy Leaf Frog, in rain forests throughout the world have a relationship with vermiliad (a rain-forest plant that grows close to the ground on or near trees) and other plants in the rain forests. The frogs use the leaves of the vermiliad as shelter from sun and rain.
• Source: What Animals Show Commensalism in the Rain Forest?
• By Laila Alvarez; Updated May 10, 2018
STATION 6
• https://kids.nationalgeographic.com/animals/poison-dart-frog/#poison-dart-frog-orange-blue.jpg
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STATION 7
• Leeches are used in medicine in a practice called "leech therapy." The leech is allowed to drink blood from the human and in return chemicals from the leech's saliva help cure diseases in humans.
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