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Katie Hill and Tom Li (Only Tom's part, the evens)

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Katie Hill and Tom Li (Only Tom's part, the evens)

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2*Scientific Name: Their scientific name is Alosa Sapidissima.
4*Food Source: American shads feed on plankton, crustaceans, fish eggs, and occasionally small fish.
6*Migration: In spring, adult American shads migrate to the freshwater rivers and streams in which they were born to spawn.
8*Competition/Cooperation: The American shads compete with the Strip basses, the Hickory shads, and the Alewives for food in the Chesapeake Bay.

10*Symbiotic relationship: Commensalism. The American shad lays its eggs inside a mussel's mouth and the mussel protects the eggs but gets nothing in return.
12*Interesting Facts:

The American shad is the largest and most well-known shad species.

American shads live 6-to-10 years.

The oldest american shad is 11 years old.

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Critter's Common Name: American Shad
Scientific Name: Alosa Sapidissima
Description: Metallic body, Silver, Multiple fins, 2 eyes, many scales, 40-76cm
Food Source: they eat small shrimp, fish eggs,plankton,and occasionally small fish
Habitat: Spends most of life in the Atlantic Ocean but goes to coastal rivers,bays, and tributary to spawn
Migration: *
Niche: food for other animals and preys on small shrimp, fish eggs,plankton,and occasionally small fish
Competition/Cooperation: *
Challenges: Predators-bears, birds, fairly big fish like striped bass, small mouth bass, channel catfish, and blue fish, and humans
Over Harvesting- People fish American Shad too much and in some states they are protected

Symbiotic relationships: *
Importance: they provide food for us (sometimes) and for their predators
Interesting Facts: *

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Critter's Common Name: Osprey
Scientific Name: Pandion Haliaetus

Description: brown above with white below most of the Osprey’s feathers being white, 1 pair of eyes ranging from different colors, talons each of the osprey’s legs, ,segmented body, usually around 7.5 cm.
Food Source: Fish from the Chesapeake and near by rivers. If there aren't any near by fish they eat small mammals, birds, and reptiles.
Habitat: Worldwide wherever there are rivers, bays, lakes or seacoasts
Migration: The Osprey migrates to South America during fall and winter to breed and they return to America in the spring.
Niche: The role of an osprey is that they indicate good health and abundance of fish stocks when they hunt.
Competition: The Osprey competes with near by Eagles for food in the Chesapeake
Challenges: A challenge an osprey faces is it's predators which are Owls, Eagles, Fox, Raccoon, and Skunk. Another challenge is competitors such as fishing Eagles worldwide.
Symbiotic relationships: Parasitism-Osprey-Fish- the Osprey gets food from the fish and the fish is harmed
Importance: Ospreys are carnivores so if they were to go extinct the Owls, Eagles, Raccoons, Foxes, and Skunks would lose a source of food. Since 99% of the Ospreys diet is fish the fish Ospreys eat might overpopulate.
Interesting Facts:  Ospreys live from 15-20 years

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Critter Name: Sandbar Shark
Scientific Name: Carcharhinus

Description:Brownish body and white tummy, round snout & triangular teeth,tall dorsal fin, Rudge of skin between back 2 dorsal fins
Food Source:Bony fish, smaller sharks, rays, crabs, gastropods, and shrimps.
Habitat: Their habitat ranges from Massachusetts to Brazil, favoring the coastal waters. They live 20-65 meters deep and sometimes venturing down to 1,800 meters.
Niche: Sandbar sharks are bottom feeders, which means that they feed at the bottom of the ocean.
Migration: Sandbar sharks migrate in the late fall from their nursing grounds to deeper waters until they return int he warmer months.

Competition/Cooperation: The sandbar sharks cooperate by staying in a pack to protect each other
Challenges: The sandbar shark is threatened by humans, and the tiger shark eats them. They are very vulnerable to over harvesting, and the young are easily killed.
Symbiotic relationships: The sandbar shark shares a symbiotic relationship with the remora fish, which attaches itself to the sandbar shark, cleaning it, and in return, the shark protects the remora fish.
Importance: Sandbar
Interesting Facts: Sandbar sharks don't attack humans, and they are the most common shark in the Chesapeake bay.

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Also known as the brown shark, the sandbar shark is a stocky shark that visits the grassy shallows of the lower and middle Chesapeake Bay in summer and autumn.

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Critter's Common Name:
Great Blue Heron
Scientific Name:
Ardea Herodias
Description:
Large, Long beak, long s shaped neck, long legs, 2 eyes
Food Sources:
Small fish, rodents, small mammals. Based on abundance and availability.
Habitat:
Shores of both freshwater and saltwater, and wetlands.
Does it migrate?:
Yes. Singly or in small flocks. Spend winters in southern Canada to northern South America. Spends summers in southern Canada, gulf states, central america, and the Caribbean.
Niche:
Helps balance the amount of fish in the ecosystem. Gives food to it's predators.
Competition & Coop:
Competes with other large birds, sharks, squid, bears, and octopuses for food.
Challenges:
Many animals go after their eggs, and red tailed hawks sometimes go after the chicks and/or the fully grown birds.
Symbiotic Relations:
Mutualism with beavers.
Importance:
Removal would result in it's prey (small fish) overpopulating, and it's predators dying off due to lack of food.
Interesting Info:
Great Blue Herons hunt by standing in shallow water. They can live up to 15 years. They nest in trees.

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Critter's Common Name: Phytoplankton
Scientific Name : Emiliania Huxleyi

Description: the phytoplankton is looks round with many oval shaped pieces stuck to it. In the middle of each oval there is one smaller oval The phytoplankton is a light grey color.
Food Source: They get there food from photosynthesis.
Habitat: Phytoplankton live in oceans, seas, and lakes. They live at the top of the column.
Migration: Yes, since the phytoplankton live on the top of the ocean the predators can see them so they have to move down in the ocean where there is less light.
Niche: Photosynthesis by phytoplankton acounts for half of global primary production. It’s also zooplankton’s main food source.
Competition/Cooperation: They compete with zooxanthellae becuase they use coral polyps which means less resources for the phytoplankton.
Challenges: Rising sea Surface temperatures are causing the population of phytoplankton to decrease.
Symbiotic relationship: The zooxathellae has to got through the process of photosynthesis to get it's food.
Importance: Phytoplankton is a food source for small fish, other plankton, and bigger animals like whales. Phytoplankton is also a big part in the carbon cycle.
Interesting Facts: What I thought was really interesting was that there are over a thousand different types of phytoplankton species.

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Nannotax3 - Coccolithophores - Emiliania huxleyi

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Geological Range: Notes: Determining exact lacement of FAD is tricky even with SEM, but if E. huxleyi is common age is definitely within N21 Last occurrence (top): within NN21 zone (0.00-0.29Ma, top in "Holocene" stage). Data source: zonal marker, e.g Young 1998 First occurrence (base): within NN21 zone (0.00-0.29Ma, base in Ionian stage).

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Critter Name:  Atlant
Scientific Name: Brevoortia tyrannus
Description:  The Atlantic menhaden has a bluish green or brown body. It grows to 14 to 18 inches in length. Its sides, fins and belly are silvery. A black, round spot on its side is followed by smaller spots arranged in rows.
Food source : It is a filter feeder. As it opens its mouth it filters out the plankton in the water
Habitat: It lives in the waters from Nova Scotia south to northern Florida.
Migration: It visits the Chesapeake Bay from Spring to Fall.
Niche: Help people fertilize their crops.
Competition/Cooperate:
Competes with blue fish, sharks, striped bass, mackerel, mammals, and fish-eating seabirds.
Challenges: A couple predators and lots of pollution such as oil spills factories. They are not over harvested thought because people cannot eat them due to their oily skin.
Symbiotic relationships: Parasitism with phytoplankton and zooplankton .
Importance: American Indians used this fish as fertilizer for their crops.
Interesting facts: The Natives called this fish the"Munnawhatteaug"which means fertilizer. They can only up tho 10-12 years.

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Nathan Hooberman, Kaden Nguyen, Rylee Hanson

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Nathan Hooberman, Kaden Nguyen, Rylee Hanson

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Critter Name: Striped Bass
Scientific Name: Morone Saxatillis
Description: The Striped Bass  normally have white bodies with black strips running down there body but they can be olive green, blue or brown also. It also has a forked tail fin and 3 spikes on there anal fin.
Food Source: Striped Bass feed on small fish and invertebrates. Some Examples are: Worms, Squids, Menhaden, and Anchovies
Habitats: Coastal waters, Rivers, and Lakes
Migration: Coastal Migration: When they move north along the coast. Spawning Migration: move up to fresh water to spawn
Niche: Top predator, natural population control for shad, herring, anchovies etc.
Competition: Striped bass compete with shad, herring, anchovies, sharks, crustaceans
Challenges: Some challenges are poor water from runoffs, low DO in deep water, poor water quality from sewage, and over fishing.
Symbiotic Relationships: Angler fish are warned by striped bass when predators are near. Striped bass also prevent herring and shad from overpopulating.
Importance: Striped bass are near the top of the food chain, they are important to commercial fishing, and they prevent overpopulation.
Interesting facts: The largest striped bass was 125 pounds. Striped bass are also called "stripers" and rock fish. They stay on the coast line. They swim in control in fast moving rivers.

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Critter's Common Name: American Oyster
Scientific Name: Crossostrea Virginica
Description: rough outer shell like a rock, its color is from black to a tan color;  the inside of the oyster is a smooth white color.
Food Source: Eats plankton by opening shells and pumping water through their gills.
Habitat: 8 to 35 deep water with long water ways and a firm bottom
Migration: the oyster does not migrate it stays in one place for it’s life.
Niche: The American oyster filters and cleans the water for other animals.
Competition/Cooperation: The oyster’s cooperation is the pea crab because they help each other survive the pea crab gets food and shelter and the oyster gets aided by the pea crab.
Challenges: The oyster is facing a lot of over fishing the population gets fewer and fewer. They are also facing Disease that kill a large amount of oysters, and the oysters that we are looking for are the ones that are immune to the Disease. Symbiotic relationships: one symbiotic relationship is the oyster and the pea crab, the pea crab will stick on to the oyster, the pea crab now has food and shelter, and the pea crab aids the oyster.
Importance : The importance of the oyster is high because it filters the water of dirty water, it is also a food source for animals such as crabs, seagulls, and starfish, that balance the ecosystem.
Interesting Facts: oysters are able to change their gender. The Chesapeake Bay loses 2,600 acres of oyster beds annually because of silt and sediments that cover them. American Oyster’s can be found from Canada to Argentina.

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Critter's Common Name:
Zooplankton
Scientific Name:
Euphausia Superba
Description: The Zooplankton has a plash of orange on its body but is mostly translucent with black eyes and 8 legs
Food Source: Zooplankton eat any other organisms smaller than it.
Habitat: Lakes, oceans, tarns, streams and swamps
Migration: Zooplankton don't migrate over long distances but they migrate in their own adapted way. In the morning they sink very deep and rise through out the day. This is called diel vertical migration.
Niche: Eats bacteria, detritus, other rotifers, algae and protozoa
Competition/Cooperation: Zooplankton compete with other organisms of their size.
Challenges: Global warming, ocean acidification, toxic algae blooms, and increase pollution
Symbiotic relationships: In Antarctica zooplankton have a adapted version of commensalism, fish and whales eat zooplankton so they don't overpopulate while zooplankton really get nothing but get eaten which is bad for them. This is a adapted version of commensalism because normally in commensalism one organism does not benefit while the zooplankton get eaten and don't benefit but die.
Importance: all fish depend on Zooplankton during their larva phase
Interesting Facts:
Zooplankton are surprisingly food for salamanders and insects. I thought only fish ate zooplankton.

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Critter's Common Name: Under Water Grasses

Scientific Name:submerged aquatic vegetation or SAV.

Description: Long green strands of submerged grass or kelp and seaweed and grow in groups not by them self

Food Source: No our plant (Underwater grasses) doesn't migrate. Our plant can live in cold temperatures, but in hot temperatures underwater grasses can die off in large scales that will take up to 7 years to go back to it's normal state

Habitat: Chesapeake Bay

Niche: Shelters young fish and crabs (blue crabs) and filters out sediment

Competition/Cooperation: Underwater grasses compete/Cooperate with  Microscopic zooplankton, they feed on decaying underwater grasses ridding the grass of waste in return they become food.

Challenges:

Extreme weather, Including high temperatures or excess rainfall. It’s growth is  delayed by pollution.Too much sediment can block sunlight for the plants to grow

Symbiotic relationships: Underwater grasses has a Symbiotic relationship called commercialism, they provide food and shelter to numbers of wildlife

Importance:

Underwater grasses help keep the water clean and healthy by

-absorbing nitrogen and phosphorus

-traps sediment that would cloud waters and suffocate shellfish

-slowing the water's current which reduces erosion

Interesting Facts: Underwater grasses offer food to small invertebrates and migratory waterfowl. Most species of Underwater grasses can go up to 4 ft.

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Critter's common Name:         Blue Crab
Scientific Name:
Callinectes sapidus
Description:
Bright, blue claws, with an olive green shell. The blue crab is 9 inches across, and has 9 teeth on each side of carapace. It has 2 eyes, 2 claws, and white bottom.
Food Source:
Blue Crab eat anything they can find, freshly dead fish, clams,oysters,mussels, and even other small blue crabs.
Habitat:
Chesapeake Bay, oceans, bays etc.
Migration:
Yes the Blue Crab does migrate. Every summer they migrate to the Chesapeake Bay.
Niche:
Filters water, and is a predator to clams, oysters, and mussels. Blue crabs are also prey to croakers, red drums, and herons
Competition/Cooperation:
The Blue Crab competes with diseases that affect oysters (One of the main sources of food for the blue crab.) They also compete with anemones, sea nettles, and flatworms.
Challenges:
Predators, large fish like croakers, red drums, and other sea creatures like sea turtles target the Blue Crabs. Birds like the Great Blue Heron also target Blue Crabs. People who target them for food, over harvesting declines in population for the Blue Crabs. Pollution, habitat loss, and diseases also affect them. Diseases that oysters have can affect the crabs because oysters are the crabs main source of food.
Symbiotic relationships:
Young Blue Crabs and certain aquatic plants have a relationship that demonstrates mutualism. Blue Crabs eat mollusks living on plants. The plants provide protection, and the crabs keep the plant healthy.
Importance:
If Blue Crabs become extinct then the predator's population would decrease and the preys population would increase. Because when the predators die there is no one to hunt the prey so then they over populate since there is no predators to keep a sustained amount of them.
Interesting Facts:
One really interesting facts
about the Callinectes sapidus is that in Greek and in Latin it means "Savory Beautiful Swimmer".

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Critter's Common Name: Loggerhead Turtle
Scientific Name: Caretta
Description: their carapace is heart shaped with star shaped light and dark streaks, they are about 31-45 inches in length and about 170- 350 pounds.
Food Source: horseshoe crabs, invertebrates, and shellfish.
Habitat: coral reefs, salt marshes, brackish lagoons, mouths of rivers, warm currents, and coastal waters.
Migration: Loggerhead Turtles born in Japan migrate 8,000 miles to Baja California, Mexico to feed and mature.
Niche: feeds on large amounts of invertebrates, affecting their populations, allowing their broken shells to be used as a calcium source for other species.
Competition/Cooperation: They compete with other omnivores for food.
Challenges: Loggerhead turtles face getting captured in fishing gear, and are therefore became threatened.
Symbiotic relationships: They have a parasitism symbiotic relationship.
Importance: Their prey would over populate and others wouldn't have food.
Interesting Facts: Caretta is derived from the french word "caret" which means "kind of turtle".

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Critter name: white perch
Scientific name: Morone Americana
Description: The White Perch is small and silverish brown with a dark colored back with crests on it. The belly is white and the white perch has a slightly forked tail. The White Perch 7 to 10 inches long and usually weigh up to a pound.
Food source: Adult: small fish, insects, detritus, fish eggs, and larvae. Juveniles: tiny zooplankton, insects and Crustaceans,
Habitat: The White Perch lives in shallow streams and some bays and rivers, fresh water or brackish water.
Migration:They migrate downstream to brackish waters. Adult white perch go back upstream to lay eggs
Niche: The White perch role is to keep all the species it eats from overpopulating and hurting the ecosystem.
competition and cooperation: they compete with yellow perch
challenges your organisms face.
Symbiotic relationships: none
important to our critter.
Challenges: Some challenges the White Perch face are over fishing because people try to eat them or our trying to eliminate them because in some places they cause problems. They also have a lot of predators like the stripped bass, blue fish, walleye, cope pod, bluegill and they also eat themselves.
Importance: The White Perch is important because it is a natural species to the bay and a lot of animals eat it. If the White Perch were to disappear many animals would die of not having enough food.
Interesting Facts:  They have three spines, Biggest recorded white perch was 2 pounds and 10 ounces

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Critter's common name: Grass shrimp

Scientific name: Palaemonetes pugio

Description: The grass shrimp has a segmented, transparent gray body with multi-colored spots on its back that's compressed on either side. It has a pointed, jagged rostrum  over its eyes. It has three pairs of legs and can grow up to 1.5 inches long and 1/4 inch wide.

Food source: Grass shrimp  feed on worms, algae, bay-grasses and small crustaceans (crustaceans are primary consumers in an aquatic ecosystem).

Habitat: Grass shrimp inhabit both deep and shallow waters, and grass beds and oyster reefs in the Chesapeake Bay.

Migration: The grass shrimp migrates to deeper water to avoid both high and low temperature conditions.

Niche: Grass shrimp are omnivores that like to eat aquatic plants and other small crustaceans and are eaten by many other small fish such as sunfish and killifish. They tend to live in deeper waters.

Competition/Cooperation with other organisms: Grass shrimp compete with American prawn; American prawn move grass shrimp from their habitats (oyster reefs).

Challenges: grass shrimp are eaten by killifish, sunfish, and other small fishes.

Symbiotic relationships: parasitism; grass shrimp are hosts for a number of parasites, including coccidians, microsporidians, trematodes, isopods, and leeches, but the parasites aren’t able to cause serious damage. (Grass shrimp aren’t consumed by humans, so they’re not in danger of over harvesting. They’re not an endangered species, in fact they’re one of the most abundant species in the Bay.)

Importance of grass shrimp to the Bay’s ecosystem: Grass shrimp are consumed by killifishes and other fishes that are important prey for larger fishes. They’re also important conduit in the transfer of energy from the producer and decomposer levels up to the higher consumer levels of the food chain/pyramid.

Other interesting information: 1) female grass shrimp are more dominant than the males, 2) grass shrimp are also decomposers (detritivores) because they aid in the breakdown of seagrasses. 3) grass shrimp can camoflage themselves to hide from predators.