A Sonoran Desert Community

[Sean Nash]

*A simulation... doggone it!

On October 15th, we will be conducting another species diversity study. However, unlike the deciduous forest and freshwater pond communities here in our own town... this task will be to examine data from a Southern California desert community. This will be done using detailed maps from MWSU. I am pretty excited about seeing this one play out, as I have yet to see the actual maps.

The actual diversity index will be done in much the same way as our field study from this week. However, we will dive more deeply into the meaning of the data from this lab. Makes sense to progress, right?

We will use this thread to do some pre-studies in order to familiarize ourselves with this ecosystem. It will help to be able to have a picture of the Sonoran desert in your head while conducting the simulation. More specifically, we will be comparing two sub-zones of this community, the bajada zone and the wash zone. We will be evaluating species diversity using a quadrat sampling method.

As we are accustomed, we will also revisit this same thread to reflect on both the content of the lab as well as the process of the learning event. A few questions to ask yourself as you process this new ecosystem might be... What do I expect to find living there? What are the most common plants and animals of the Sonoran desert? How do the bajada and wash zones typically differ? What might a typical food web for this community look like? What might approximate a trophic pyramid for this system? How does this community compare to the terrestrial habitat (deciduous forest) we sampled this week? How are they different? Perhaps even more challenging... how are they the same? What is truly unique?


.

[Kylie Warner]

After watching the movie, I think that people in general have a lot of misconceptions about deserts. People (including me) just think that deserts are just hot. But from the movie I learned that deserts aren't defined by the temperature but by the lack of moisture in a certain area. The Gobi desert can get down to -40 degrees but is still considered a desert because there isn't an abundant source of water there. It never came to me to ask the question why or how there are deserts. I always just assumed that that was just the way the climate was... no rain. But the movie explained that the Gobi desert is so dry because the clouds can't get through the Himalayas leaving the Gobi dry. Then when Mrs. Nash pointed out that most deserts have mountains near them, it was like an "Ah ha" moment for me.

I learned that for every desert, they each have their own species of animals. I could easily assume that because there is no water, it would be hard to find a ton of animals but I learned that there are a lot of living organisms in deserts and each have their own way to keep cool and adapt. Like the Kit Fox in the Austrailian desert has large ears to radiate heat away from them and Kangaroos lick their forearms to keep cool. I thought that lions lived in Savannas and found out that they actually can live in deserts, but travel in smaller prides and have a much larger hunting ranch because their food is scarce too.

Here's a picture of a Kit Fox:)

Learning that 1/3 of the world is deserts was kind of interesting because i really just only thought of a few. But the movie pointed out so many deserts that I was so unaware of .

[Ivory Baldwin]

Aww The Kit Fox is so CUTE :)

[Sean Nash]

And hey... if you just want to kick back and enjoy ten minutes of imagery to give you a feel for the place, check this out.......


I found it particularly fitting that there was a cardinal featured prominently in one of the opening images!


.

[Marcy Withrow]

I expect to find different species of snakes, rats, and coyotes (That's common.) As for plants I found that there are two different species that make the Sonoran different from other North American Deserts. The species are: Legume trees and columnar cacti.

This is a Legume Tree

Here is a columnar cacti.

I also pulled out our Textbook and found the Sonoran Desert. On page 429 it talks about the Sonoran. The Sonoran has giatn saguaro cacti and deeply rooted shrubs. It also says that some desert nice never drink water. But, occasionally they find seeds that contain some. It's common that the plants there have protection adaptations such as spines on cacti or poisonus leaves. That way they are protected from mammals and insects.


The bajada zone is created by weathering and is at the edge of a mountain; while a wash zone is near a shoreline. So, one needs water and the other is created mostly by weathering. Also, bajada is at the edge of a mountain when a wash zone is near a shoreline.

A food web for the Sonoran would be the Sun as it's energy provider. As for it's producers you would have Cacti, the Legume Tree, and Columnar Cacti. The primary consumer would be the mice, or the organisms that feed on the producer (mice feed on seeds.) The secondary consumer would most likely be snakes. The snakes love the mice ( for food!) Tertiary would then be the coyotes ( I think they could take on most snakes.) That would be a little of what the food web would look like, plus a bizillion more organisms!

Once again we are looking at the species diversity. As our terrestrial experiment we are looking at the vegetation and the insects, plus the organisms found there. Both have a habitat where they live, they have adapted. The food web would be the same, just different organisms. Obviously, the deciduous would have a lot more water. The desert may have more sun, actually a lot more. The mammals may be a little more out in the open, since there is shade everywhere. Where as compared to the desert mammals, they might want to hide, shade would be hard to come by for them. Life for the organisms in the diciduous would be easier. They wouldn't have to search for water and shelter would be easier. But, for the desert organisms, shelter would be kinda rough.

Both habitats have a food web. Nothing would change there. What is unique is that both these places are found on the same continent, North America. It's a crazy though that so many miles away there is a whole new life, a whole new habitat. It's all about adaption and survivial of the fitttest for both habitats.

Legume tree pic by: http://www.ecoescuela.cl/files/Grifen/Images/TropicaltoSubtropicalP...

Columnar Cacti pic by: http://www.arizonensis.org/images/plantae/cereus_thurber.jpg

[Marcy Withrow]

Okay, first of all my first paragraph above is "mice" not "nice". Sorry for the horrible spelling. The video we watched was very informative on deserts.

To add onto the Sonoran desert there are infrequent rainfalls. The Giant Saguaro take up most of the rain, because they're so tall. After the rain it stores it in it's roots. It can store up to 5 tons! The birds benefit from the Saguaro. They peck at it and can get water. When the Saguaro begin to bloom bats come along. That's a different organism not often thought about in a desert.

Deserts take up 1/3 of all land on every continent. Everyday in the desert is a battle for survival. I found that all the organisms in a desert have to adapt. That is a major common characteristic. Without adaptation many of these organisms could not survive. Take for example Southern African elephants. They have large ears that keep them cool. In Australia the Red Kangaroo licks it's forearms to stay cool. Foxes in the Sahara desert have BIG ears that radiate the heat. Camels eat snow when it is has snowed. I didn't catch where the camels are located. These are all adaptations!

All deserts have a lack of water. But, somehow they seem to always have a little bit. Some deserts have flash floods once or twice a year. The Sonoran has infrequent rain. There's a desert in Chile that uses fog as it's water source. Many organisms benefit from this and without the fog, survival would be nearly impossible. But, eventually the fog is gone, because of the desert sun. Without water vegetation exsist.

This brings me back to the food web. I have decided that, for a change, producers are scarce in this area. Since water is limited not very many plants grow here. So, you can imagine how little the population of tertiary must be if vegetation is scarce. Also, the primary consumers take up a big share of vegetation. In Death Valley there are many Locust. The Locust are kind of like a plague. They come by and eat everything that is edible. Their swarms can be as large as ten miles! That would be terrible! Also, there are sand storms. This harms organisms. Luckily most have adapted. For example, reptiles have scaly skin to protect them from the sand. Camels have long eyelashes to keep it from getting in their eyes. Crazy stuff!!

[Taylor Woodruff]

Well... just from watching movies hah I'm going to have to say that I think that there will be crows, owls, lizards, snakes, a lot of different types of plant life, and a bunch of other species. I'm sure there's a whole bunch of different types of life living in the Sonoran Desert, like Sean said, it might even be more diverse than the forest ecosystem!

When I looked up the most common plants in the Sonoran Desert I found there to be a lot of different types of cacti and chollas. I thought the "Jumping Cholla" was cool because to me it kind of looked like it belonged in the ocean not in the desert, like it was coral or something. Then, when I decided to look up the most common animals it showed a lot of different types of birds, like I thought, owls and wren. Also, I found a lot of lizards, bobcats, and coyotes live in the desert!

As I was looking for what a typical food chain for the Sonoran Desert I found this picture, that I believe is pretty self-explainitory, so here it is...

Compared to the deciduous forest it's a lot different! The way it looks, the living things, the non-living things, and obviously the climate is completely different. So, pretty much the whole atmosphere is different :p Lets take the plant life for example, in the forest theres a lot of tall trees, but in the desert there's a lot of spikey short plants. Also, the animals are different because theres deer and chipmunks, while the desert has a lot of coyotes and lizards. Not to mention a whole other list of things that are different, but would take all day to list.

Even though they might not seem like they have anything in common, surprisingly they do. For instance, they both have a lot of different kinds of birds living in each habitat, they might not be the same types of birds, but they are birds :p

Ohh and here's a picture of what some of the homes look like in the desert.. I was kind of curious of how they looked when we talked in class, so I figured other people would be too!

[Taylor Woodruff]

So, I definitely learned a lot just by watching this video! Right off the bat I learned that elephants can live in deserts, and I never realized how funny shaped they were. Their legs are so long! I also learned that tigers don't just live in the jungle, but a lot of them live in the desert.. it's crazy how many misconceptions we have about were animals live.

I also learned that not all deserts are hot. As the show defined it, deserts are just places that lack water. For example, some deserts even have snow, and can drop their temperatures down to -40 degrees! When I asked Mrs. Nash about snow being water, she said it was, but it is still dry so the desert is still lacking water.

Something else that I thought was cool was when deserts get too hot animals like kangaroos are able to delay their development of their embryos! I think that's so weird how animals are able to control things like that, who knew?!

I also thought it was crazy that deserts have "flash floods" which are pretty much just water that comes from anywhere around 100 miles away, and it only happens once or twice a year. This is pretty cool because it allows a lot of green life to produce, which gives the animals more to live off of, even if it's just for a short amount of time.

I should probably finish off about something I learned about the Sonoran Desert considering that's what we are learning about :p So, I learned that the saguaro cactus is the biggest type of cactus out there, and it lives in the Sonoran Desert. This cactus is pretty cool because it can store water that well last for months!

[Ally S]

They really do look like that! :)

I love having a connection to this.

Most houses around the desert are a tan color, and not many have color, unless you see a wealthier person's establishment, and that's usually brick.

Most have cacti growing in the front, and there isn't normally grass. Just rocks.

[Kerstyn Bolton]

What do I expect to find living in the desert? I'd first expect to see cacti, trees, plants, flowers, and dirt; but as far as animals go I'd expect jack rabbits, lizards, deer and maybe kangaroo? Deserts are extremely dry though, so I don't think there would be a huge variety of animals as most of them wouldn't be able to survive. In comparison to the pond ecosystem I think the desert will be different in so many ways, because first of all the desert is much, much larger than small, little ponds. I'm excited to see all of the small details about deserts, because I've honestly never learned anything about what's in them and how the ecosystem works.

http://www.thedailygreen.com/cm/thedailygreen/images/5J/sonoran-des..."/>' /'>

The most common animals in the Sonoran Desert are coyotes, Mexican Wolfs, bobcat, jack rabbits, squirrels, bats, mice, lizards, rattlesnakes, roadrunners and tarantulas and the most common plants are cactus', mesquite trees, desert ironwood, brittlebrush, and herbeceous perennials. These are only a few of the hundreds of plants that live in the desert and many of these plants are necessary to keep the land clear and to feed the animals. Some things that I wonder are: Is this desert overpopulated or is it moderate? How high do the temperatures get? Do any people live or visit the Sonoran Desert? If so, how many? Hopefully, I will find these answers and much more after we look at the detailed maps in class. I can't wait!

The bajada zone is by definition a broad, sloping area of debris and a wash zone by definition is a dry intermittant stream channel usally caused by lots of rainfall. When looking up these two zones it was very confusing and very hard to find, because they didn't seem too popular. I'd like to learn more about this, because right now I have no idea the differences and for that matter I'm not too sure what they are.

A food web for this community wouldn't be too different from the one of a pond ecosystem, because they both have plants those are the roots. The food web would obviously start with the plants or producers, then comes the primary consumers and then secondary consumers, which is the same as the pond ecosystem, unless this is how all food webs are labeled? At the bottom of this food chain would be the cacti, shrubs, trees and plants, then the bugs such as spiders and grasshoppers, then the mice and rats, which are then eaten by birds and snakes and the head honchos are birds like hawks and owls. These food webs are one of the most simplistic pieces of the desert life, or at least that's what I think. I like the food webs though, because they teach the how the animals survive in the desert considering, it's be extremely hard to survive based on the sources of food and extreme dryness.

The trophic pyramid for this system would be very similar to the one's we saw while learning about the ponds and its organisms. It would be basically like the food web, in my opinon at least. Honestly, I'm not really sure the difference between this trophic pyramid and the food web? Would anyone like to elaborate on this for me?

Although I wasn't at the lab I can say that I know there are a few differences between the forest habitat and the desert habitat. They both have trees, animals, and bugs yet one is in a habitat with extremely hot weather while the forests weather changes very periodically. Forest habitats can be very large (although the one you guys went to wasn't), but in comparison desert habitats are absolutely ginormous. The Sonoran Desert is 120,000 sq. mi. and actually I think you told me this desert isn't the largest or even one of the largest, which is crazy! I never knew that deserts were so huge; I had this view that they were small areas of land, kind of like the size of a smaller forest. I'm anxious to see the actually make up of these deserts and even more anxious to do the forest lab (if I still can!)

Overall, I'm extremely interested in seeing what the similarities and differences are between the pond/forest ecosystem and this desert ecosystem. It kinda stinks we can't actually go to a desert though, because the whole hands on experience is a lot more fun and beneficial. I also wonder how much water is actually in the desert? If so, what kind of water sources are available? I'd also like to know if there are smaller deserts, because the Sonoran has hundreds of different species and thousands of different plants, which is a very large variety. Learning about the desert will definitely widen my perception and knowledge of this land source and the organisms that live within it. I'm actually excited to see what's to come!

[Kerstyn Bolton]

After watching Planet Earth - The Desert what I said before was somewhat correct, but could use some tuning up. In this video the animals and graphics were awesome! The first thing that I learned was deserts cover 1/3 of all land and I thought this was crazy. I had absolutely no idea there were so many deserts. Something that caught my eye was when the narrator said, "Everyday is a battle to stay alive." Obviously, we know this, but when it comes out in words it's hard to comprehend. Life like this would be scary and almost impossible, so mad props to these species who live in deserts. :) Not all deserts are hot. When they were talking about the winter it was surprising to me even though obviously it's a necessity. One misconception I had was that their winters get to -40 degrees and the summer only gets to 104 degrees. (obviously this is a certain desert though)

Without water the animals in one of the deserts would die within hours, which is ridiculous. So, if there was a so-called "drought" or whatever you call it in deserts then many of the animals wouldn't make it. One thing I found interesting was the "survival of the fittest" concept that is used in deserts. If you're weaker then first of all you won't get the girl and second of all food will be very hard to find. Some of the animals they pointed out specifically were kangaroos, foxes and camels, which were all extremely cute! All of these animals have to find water to survive and this becomes difficult most of the time.

The video only talked briefly about the Sonoran Desert, which kinda stunk, because I was eager to see what specific animals and plants lived there. The main focus of this desert was the Saguaro Cacti, which is the largest of all this desert. This specific cacti expands greatly to keep water in for later droughts. There weren't many animals talked about that live in the Sonoran Desert though. :(

In one of the desert or maybe all of them they explained how cacti stay alive: there is a cold sea current that runs parallel to bring moisture. Although this doesn't happen for that long I still didn't have any idea it occured. This makes me wonder how many times these sea currents happen?

Deserts are caused from lack of water, which is a given. It makes me wonder how long a desert has gone with no rain fall or any sign of rain? They said there are flash floods that occur once or twice a year, but in an hour they are already gone. Overall, I did learn a lot more about the specifics of deserts after watching this video. :)

[Blayr Bolton]

From researching on the web about possible organisms found in the Sonoran Desert, I found a vast amount of variety in the different species I discovered. Before I start discussing what I found, as of right now I am very uninformed about desert life, so most all of what I discover is going to be new and exciting for me. For example, with the animal life in the Sonoran Desert I was very shocked to find things like birds, bobcats, owls, tortoises, antelopes, snakes, coyotes, and toads. Granted, I'm shocked that much life exists here anyhow, but I'm sure I'll learn more about this later. Other living things that I'll expect to find will be a great amount of vegetation; including several forms of cactus, bushes, and tree's.

I didn't necessarily find the most common plants and animals, but I would assume it would be cactus and I sort of feel like the animal population is pretty well distributed between this area. These indeed are just assumptions though, so I'm looking forward to proving myself wrong with this and learning more about the animal and plant life. I'm not even sure that I found out all of the information needed, but there were so many options on the web I just chose a few resources.

Disclaimer: I'm not sure if I have weak web searching skills, but I failed to find out enough information about the bajada zone and wash zone to fully understand and distribute my new found learning. :/

When searching for a food web that would describe the food chain in the Sonoran Desert, it seemed as though a picture would be the easiest to understand. I'm proud to say that the picture I found had the arrows pointing the right way as well! When examining the food chain, I couldn't help but to compare it to the pond food web that we looked at. I noticed a huge difference in the size of each level, which makes sense because of the size difference between a pond and desert, but I still found this to be quite interesting. Inferring from what I've learned about trophic pyramids, the approximated trophic pyramid for the desert would possibly seem to be a little closer in numbers compared to that of one from a pond. It seems as the population is much greater in a desert, therefore bringing in closer numbers of levels.

This desert community compares to the decidious forest that we tested last week in regards to their overall difference. The decidious forest is home to diverse sections of plant and animal life, but I've found out that the Sonoran Desert holds a lot more variety with plants and animals. I learned that in the forest area we sampled, there were a lot of different species of tree's and bugs, but the different species in the desert seem to be a lot more noticeable. For example, when looking at all of the trees, they appeared to be the same to me, but there is a distinct difference in the plant life found in the desert. One thing I may have found in common with the forest life and desert life is the rainfall. Granted, rainfall is much less in the desert, but it is still used for vegetation and growth like it is in a forest. The desert also has similiar seasons like a forest does. The springs holds blooming flowers, summer is full of rain which helps for growth in flowers, fall contains a cooler breeze, and winter on occasion can bring snow. Surprise, surprise!

By the way, I thought this was very intriguing about the life in the Sonoran Desert. According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonoran_Desert, "The Sonoran Desert includes 60 mammal species, 350 bird species, 20 amphibian species, 100+ reptile species, 30 native fish species, over 1000 native bee species, and more than 2000 native plant species. The Sonoran Desert area southwest of Tucson and near the Mexican border is vital habitat for the only population of Jaguars living within the United States."

[Blayr Bolton]

THE Desert. :) How exciting?

After watching the video, I learned a tremendous amount of information about deserts in general. The video touch based a little on the Sonoran Desert, but I think I overall learned about deserts as a whole more than anything else. Some quick little facts that I learned were the deserts being a battle to stay alive, deserts being located near mountain ranges, the effects of sand storms, winds sucking out the moisture, and that in order to be classified as a desert, it depends on your lack of water. These are basic ideas of a desert, but the funny thing is I have never really heard about these occurrences. I never realized that deserts were located near mountain ranges as a source of water or that sand storms and wind had such an effect on the overall structure and habitat of a desert.

I also learned a lot about the animals that were found in a desert. Who would have ever thought that elephants survived there! And elephants are vegetarians; I was also very unaware of this. From my previous understanding, I've always known that reptiles were found in a desert, but I didn't know that they used their scaly skin as a protectant. It makes perfectly good sense, but they also mentioned that sometimes their scales just aren't enough to survive. I also found foxes, with HUGE ears might I add, are found here. Their ears are used to radiant heat as well, so that was interesting. Lizards were also discovered to be desert specialists; they team with a desert. They also eat tons and tons of flies! And Sean brought up the great point that the huge amount of flies we found, compared to the few lizards that eat them was a good example of a trophic pyramid and it's date in relation to the desert.

...Lions were also a big eye opener for the variety of animals that are found in deserts. Especially considering they are the king of the jungle. ;) Lions are found quite often in the Sahara Desert and in order to survive, they must hunt down their food because it is always on the move. The grossest creature that I learned about in deserts are going to have to be the locusts or grasshoppers because of their abundance in these areas. The video showed a ton, ton, TON, of these little bugs and it looked like they overtook the ground. ICK!

With the Sonoran Desert not being mentioned much in this video, I only learned a few quick things about it. I learned about the most common cactus called Saguaro and how they fill up with water for droughts. That was pretty sweet! I also learned that through most of the year the Sonoran Desert is impassable because of its living conditions. I also thought that the flowers that sproated from the cactus were awesome! Especially considered they help to keep all of the creatures in deserts alive. Flash floods were also something very intriguing to me. They only occur one to time times a year, but I can only imagine the amount of joy from the animals when this occurs. :)