Sustainable Aquatic Ecosystem

Select a habitat and develop a blog article or paper that addresses its location, its species’ habitat requirements, and management strategies used to help sustain the habitat.

Select one of the following habitats along with a location and submit it to your instructor for approval during Week Two. For example, you may choose peatlands in Ireland, Lake Michigan in the United States, mangrove forests in Thailand, or the coral reefs of Australia.

· Aquatic caves

· Coastal dunes

· Coral reefs

· Estuaries

· Freshwater lakes 

· Freshwater marshes

· Lagoons

· Mangrove wetlands

· Peatlands

· Rivers and streams

· Rocky intertidal zone

· Upwelling ecosystems

Select and complete one of the following assignments:

Option 1: Sustainable Aquatic Ecosystem Paper

Option 1: Sustainable Aquatic Ecosystem Paper

Develop a 1,050-word paper. Review the articles on the National Geographic News & Information Blog “Nat Geo NewsWatch” (http://blogs.nationalgeographic.com/blogs/) for examples of style and tone. 

Include the following points:

1. Describe your ecosystem and its location. Discuss the ecosystem processes of your selected site and compare them to common ecosystem processes generally found in most aquatic habitats.

2. Describe three species from your selected habitat and discuss their habitat requirements including any interactions with other species: competition, predation, or mutualism.

3. Explain which management practices are used to sustainably manage the ecosystem. Which ecological principles are these practices based on? What steps can be taken to improve the sustainable management of your selected ecosystem? What role(s) do the species interrelations play in sustainably managing your selected aquatic ecosystem? Use your selected species for supporting examples. 

a. What is the relationship between sustainably managing your selected ecosystem and managing municipal water resources? If there is no direct relationship between your aquatic ecosystem and municipal water resources, then consider how ecological management of wild aquatic systems can be applied to managing municipal water resources. Include ecological theory, self-organization and renewal, or biodiversity. 

b. Submit your paper as a Microsoft® Word document.

c. The paper should include at least one photo with permission from the author and a complete reference. 

1) Do not include any copyrighted photos. 

2) Photos can be copied and pasted into a Microsoft® Word document.

d. Include three references from reputable sources such as government web pages, international conservation organizations, newspaper articles, and articles from the University Library.

Work should be done in APA Format