M-to the-A-to the ...rine Phyla Lab

After our Geocaching unit, our class moved onto a different adventure, the discoveries of tide pools and marine phyla! Here we learned about the nine marine phylum. These being Porifera, Cnideria, Platyhelminthes, Annelida, Molluska, Nematoda, Arthropoda, Echinodermata, and Chordata. The Porifera phyla are of sponge-like creatures. In the Cnideria phyla there consists of coral, sea anemones, and jellyfish. Flatworms and tapeworms belong to the Platyhelminthes phyla and Annelida refer to earthworms and leeches. The Mollusca phylum consists of clams, oysters, snails, slugs, octopi, and squids. Nematoda are hookworms and roundworms. The Arthropoda are lobsters, crabs, and shrimp. Echinodermata is of creatures such as starfish and sea urchins, and within the phyla Chordata there are fish.

We furthered our learning even more by going into the tide pools and experimenting ourselves. The experiment we did was based off of this question: Which marine Phyla are present at the tide pools of South Maui, and which Phyla are most represented in diversity and quantity?

From this question I hypothesized that we would find more mollusks than any other phylum within the tide pools, along with finding many arthropods (crabs).

To see if my hypothesis was true, we had to first, in multiple spots, randomly spread out our transect tapes within a tide pool in south Maui. Then we had to place our first quadrat at the beginning of the transect tape and identify each of the marine phyla that were inside the quadrat. We collected our data by counting all the specimens individually inside and tallying them up. We repeated the placement of the quadrat along the transect tape till it reached the end and tallied the phyla each time.

At the tide pools, my group found mollusks, arthropods, and chordates. The abundance of the mollusks compared to the arthropods and chordata were almost overwhelming. Out of the mollusks we found 216 of the nerite snails. Of the arthropoda we found one hermit crab, five regular crabs, and two amphipods. Out of the chordata phyla we only found one fish.

From this experiment, I found my hypothesis to be correct. We did find a lot more molluska than anything else. Another phylum I found was arthropoda (crabs) and chordata. The possible sources of error that we could have or may have come across were collecting the wrong data, not placing the quadrat in multiple random places, miscounting the mollusks and other phylum we found, making the wrong calculations with distance, and just not focusing on the main goal to get everything accurate.  

These are the pictures we took during our marine phyla count:

I really enjoyed this lab. Being able to experiment with the creatures in the tide pools as a way to learn about them is very fun and helps me get a better understanding about the content when I get to witness it myself. My favorite part was not being able to be outside though, it was the contact we got to have with each of the specimens that we found. Picking them up or just studying their natural state in the tide pools was very interesting and exciting. Being able to see and feel the species also made me care about learning all about them even more. I realize that this experience has taught me some new skills in science like learning how to correctly and accurately count things within a big (or small) area and get the results I needed as well as brushing up on my lab write-up skills. I hope I get to experience more of this outdoor learning and studying in future science classes!