Discussion Writing

Initial post:

Discussion posts should be roughly 200 words in length or 2 minutes in video. Discussions may take the form of written paragraphs or outlines, video, presentations, etc. Posts that are not thorough or overly verbose will have points deducted.Review posts already made by your peers - repeat topics will not be scored. You are welcome to "reserve" a topic. If you reserve a topic, EDIT or reply to your original post to copy/paste your discussion post for your peers to see (full posts are due on Friday by 11:59PM EST)

For this discussion, you will be researching different organisms. In your initial post, youm should include:

1.Provide the full scientific name of an organism that you are interested in (plants, animals, fungi, protists, bacteria), including Domain, Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus and species.

 2.Provide the identifiable characteristics of the organism

3.Provide the major role(s) of the organism in the environment

4.Provide any special considerations (is it a keystone species? is it an invasive pest? etc.)

5.Provide APA citations and reference section for at least TWO resources.

6.Spelling and grammar should be appropriate for an academic report

Janeth Reyes

Hi Class,

The organisms I chose is Goniopora Lobata. They are also known as a flowerpot coral. They are colonies that are hemispherical or short thick columns.  A Goniopora has many daisy look alike polyps that extend outward from the base. Each polyp mouth is surrounded by 24 stinging tentacles (Wikipedia, 2011). Gonioporas have many different colors like pink, red, yellow, green. and many more. They can be found in many tropical and subtropical parts of the pacific ocean (Wikipedia, 2011). Gonioporas are photosynthetic corals which they obtain their nutritional requirements from light (Thein, 2020). They also feed themselves amino acids from water in the ocean. Gonioporas are part of the coral reefs which coral reefs protect coastlines form storms and erosion. They are also important sources for the development of new medicines to treat many diseases(NOAA,2021).

Kingdom: Animalia

phylum: Cnidaria

Class: Hexacorallia

Order: Scleractinia

Family: Poritidae

Genus: Goniopora

Species: Goniopora Lobata

Wikipedia.(2011,December).Goniopora.Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goniopora (Links to an external site.)  

Thein T. (2020, April 17). Goniopora Coral. Tidal Gardens. https://www.tidalgardens.com/blog/goniopora-coral-care/ (Links to an external site.) 

NOAA. (2021, February 26). What does coral have to do with medicine: National Ocean Service. https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/coral_medicine.html#:~:text=Coral%20reef%20plants%20and%20animals,to%20protect%20themselves%20from%20predators (Links to an external site.). 

 Kaitlin Turner

TuesdayMay 31 at 7:07pm

Manage Discussion Entry

Hello class,

The organism I have chosen is Asterias Rubens, better known as the starfish or sea star. 

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Echinodermata

Class: Asteroidea

Order: Forcipulatida

Family: Asteriidae

Genus: Asterias

Species: Rubens

Starfish have a thick outer skin made of calcium carbonate and that skin is covered with spines like sea urchins, but spines on a starfish are much shorter (Vedantu, 2022). They also typically have five arms but can have up to fifty, although a lot less common (Silver, 2019). Another identifying characteristic is a wart looking structure on top of the starfish in the center. This is called the sieve plate and water enters its body through this structure which then goes into the vascular system to aid in movement (Silver, 2019). Starfish are important to the marine environment because they feed on other organisms such as mussels and barnacles to keep them from overtaking the ecosystem and helping to maintain a healthy population of seaweeds (National Geographic, 2022). Starfish are a keystone species and one of the first to be identified as such (National Geographic, 2022). Starfish have a special ability to self-amputate and regenerate their arms. They will self amputate if a predator grabs one of their arms in an attempt to free themselves and regeneration takes months or sometimes years to complete (Silver, 2019).

References

Silver, Cathy. (2019, April 27). Creature Feature: Sea Stars. Blue Ocean Society for Marine Conservation. https://www.blueoceansociety.org/blog/creature-feature-sea-stars/ (Links to an external site.) 

Vedantu. (2022). Scientific Name of Starfish. https://www.vedantu.com/biology/scientific-name-of-starfish (Links to an external site.) 

National Geographic. (2022). Role of Keystone Species in an Ecosystem. https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/role-keystone-species-ecosystem (Links to an external site.)  

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