Ecosystem Interactions and Energy Unit
Ecosystem Interactions and Energy
At the end of this unit, I will be progressing towards mastering the following NGSS
Standards:
Engineering Practices:
ÿ Developing and using models
ÿ Using mathematics and computational thinking
ÿ Engaging in argument from evidence
Disciplinary Core Ideas:
ÿ LS 2-1: Use mathematical and/or computational representations to support explanations of factors that affect carrying capacity of ecosystems at different scales.
ÿ LS 2-2: Use mathematical representations to support and revise explanations based on evidence about factors affecting biodiversity and populations in ecosystems of different scales.
ÿ LS 2-4: Use mathematical representations to support claims for the cycling of matter and flow of energy among organisms in an ecosystem.
ÿ LS 2-8: Evaluate the evidence for the role of group behavior on individual and species’ chances to survive and reproduce.
Cross Cutting Concepts:
ÿ Cause and effect: Empirical evidence is required to differentiate between cause and correlation and make claims about specific causes and effects.
ÿ Scale, proportion, and quantity: The significance of a phenomenon is dependent on the scale, proportion, and quantity at which it occurs. Using the concept of orders of magnitude allows one to understand how a model at one scale relates to a model at another scale.
ÿ Systems and system models: Models (e.g., physical, mathematical, computer models) can be used to simulate systems and interactions—including energy, matter, and information flows—within and between systems at different scales.
ÿ Energy and matter: Energy cannot be created or destroyed—it only moves between one place and another place, between objects and/or fields, or between systems. Energy drives the cycling of matter within and between systems.
ÿ Stability and change: Much of science deals with constructing explanations of how things change and how they remain stable.
Roots, Prefixes and Suffixes I will understand are:
ÿ a-, bio-, im-, em-, natal-, mortal-, gene-, different-, logis-, exponent-,
The terms I can clearly define are:
ÿ biomass, trophic level, producer, consumer, abiotic, biotic
ÿ population, immigration, emigration, natality, mortality
ÿ logistical growth, exponential growth, carrying capacity (K)
ÿ density-dependent factors, density-independent factors, limiting factors, predator, prey
ÿ dispersion, clumped, uniform, random
ÿ innate behavior, evolution, natural selection, genetic variation, selective pressure, differential reproduction, heredity
The assignments I will have completed by the end of this unit are:
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Ecosystem Interactions and Energy Pre-Reading
Acrostic Poem for the 6 Common Elements of Life
Building Biology Words
Looking at Biomes to Study Systems and Matter
Organic Building Blocks
Traveling Nitrogen Passport
Ecosystem Interactions and Energy Study Guide
Parts of an Ecosystem Review
Population Ecology Notes
Estimating Population Size: Mark and Recapture
Population Ecology Reading
Oh Moose!
Examining Population Density and Dispersion
Human Population Pyramids
Understanding Exponentials
The History of Human Population Growth
Exploring Growth Models – Viva Amoeba
Population Trends
Population Trends Storyboard
Population Trends Predator-Prey Model
Predator-Prey Relationships
Group Behavior Google Presentation
Common Core: Genes and Social Behavior
Study Guide
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Ecosystem Interactions and Energy Pre-Reading
Ch. 2 (pg. 32-49) & Ch. 4 (pg.90-110) & Ch. 5 (pg. 116-135)What are biotic and abiotic factors? Define and give examples of each.
Create a Venn diagram to compare/contrast consumers and producers. Include the terms autotroph and heterotroph. Provide examples of each.
What role do detritivores and decomposers have in an ecosystem?
Explain how energy moves through food chains and where/how energy is lost.
Define biomass. What happens to the amount of biomass at each tropic level?
Label the image below to show the following:
q Producers
q Primary consumers
q Secondary consumers
q Where is the most/least biomass found?
q Where is the largest/smallest population?
Define biogeochemical cycle. Draw an example of how carbon or nitrogen cycles through the ecosystem.
Use terms Carbon and/or Nitrogen fixation. In your diagram, show how elements cycle from abiotic to biotic forms.
What is nitrogen fixation and why is it necessary?
What are limiting factors and how do they affect population size? Provide examples in your explanation.
What is the difference between immigration and emigration?
What is carrying capacity? Give examples of things that influence an environment’s carrying capacity.
Label the lines below as representing exponential growth or logistic growth. Below each graph, briefly explain how the population is changing over time and then predict what will happen to the populations in the future.
Define biodiversity. Why is biodiversity important?
List and briefly explain threats to biodiversity.
Using the graph below, explain how the total red fox population has changed over time.
Acrostic Poem for the Six Common Elements of Life
Carbon
Hydrogen
Oxygen
Nitrogen
Phosphorus
Sulfur
My word part and definition / My partner’s word part and definition / Our Word Parts Combined / TranslationBio- = / -logy = / Biology
What Makes Something Alive?
Introduction:
All living things, no matter how different they may be, share common characteristics.
Instructions:
Before we begin, let’s take a moment to explore what makes something alive. Why do we consider plants to be living or biotic, but a set of keys to be abiotic or not alive? What characteristics do all living things have in common?
In this activity, you will rotate around the room and examine objects in the jars. As you explore, create some form of graphic or table to group/classify these objects as being biotic or abiotic in the space below.
Be prepared to share your ideas with the class.
What are the survival needs of all living things? What characteristics to all living things share. Come
up with 5 characteristics or survival needs.
What Makes Something Alive?
Now that the class brainstorm is complete, respond to the following prompt:
What makes something alive? In other words, what characteristics do all living things share, despite their differences? Support your claim with concrete evidence and examples.
______
______
______
Levels of Organization
Label the diagram below. After labeling, be sure to define levels, as you see fit.
Ecosystem Interactions and Energy – Common Core Practice
Referring to the food web diagram on the next page:
a) Classify the producers and consumers as autotroph or heterotroph (label on the diagram).
b) What is the limitation to this model?
If matter and energy “cycles” through a system, what might be missing from this model? Add the missing component to the diagram.
c) Highlight one food chain from the food web, starting from a producer and cycling back to the producer.
d) Describe how matter cycles through your food chain. In your description, emphasize atoms and molecules.
e) Describe how energy cycles through your food chain. In the discussion of energy, quantify how much energy is available to move on to the higher trophic levels. In addition, quantify how much energy leaves the trophic system and enters the surrounding environment.
All Organisms Use Energy: Food Web
Intentionally Left Blank for
additional brainstorming, diagrams, or notes
Looking at Biomes to Study Systems and Matter
As we analyze the video on biomes and ecosystems, we will define systems. In the space below, draw a conceptual representation of a system.
If an organism is a system, where is matter entering and leaving this system? Label the diagram below. Emphasize nitrogen and carbon cycles. Use terms carbon fixation and nitrogen fixation in labels.
Looking at Biomes to Study Systems and Matter
Exactly, what is a system? Try to define it. What are other examples of systems?What are some abiotic vs. biotic parts within these systems? How do they interact?
What happens to matter within a system? How does matter move through the abiotic and biotic components?
How does matter build mass?
Can matter within a system be lost or destroyed? (demo after the video)
Modeling Organic Compounds
Using the research on the opposite page, draw an organizational model that represents the four organic compounds and the elements that make them up. Work with your group, use poster paper to create your model. You have 15 minutes to complete this activity on your poster paper, so be efficient with your time.
Organic Building Blocks
1. Producers, or autotrophs, are found on the first trophic level of the food web. Using the sun as an energy source, what type of “matter” do producers or autotrophs make? (Hint: think about photosynthesis…)
2. Based on your response to the above question, what atoms make up this matter? (Use mobile technology to help you.)
3. From carbohydrates like sugar (glucose as an example), matter can be converted to lipids (fats), amino acids (to build protein), and nucleic acids (DNA).
a) What atoms are found in lipids, commonly known as fats?
b) What atoms are found in amino acids and proteins?
c) What atoms are found in nucleic acids?
4. Do all three elements (atoms) found in carbohydrates exist in lipids, proteins and nucleic acids?
5. In addition to these three basic elements found in carbohydrates, what additional atoms do you need to build amino acids and proteins?
6. In addition to these three basic elements found in carbohydrates, what additional atoms do you need to build a nucleic acid?
Organic Building Blocks
Organic Building Blocks
7. Examine the ecosystem on the opposite page. Consider the following questions as we discuss this image as a class. We will be labeling the diagram, per your teacher’s instructions, during the discussion.
a) What organisms do you see in this ecosystem? Are these biotic or abiotic?
b) What abiotic components do these organisms interact with in order for them to get the elements necessary to support life? Give specific examples or the abiotic components and what elements these components will contribute.
At the end of your journey through the Nitrogen Cycle, complete the following:
1. Write a paragraph about your trip through the nitrogen cycle. Include information about (1) where you went, and (2) how you got to each destination.
2. Do some research and look up the Nitrogen cycle. Create a similar diagram specifically documenting your journey through the nitrogen cycle, based on this activity.
Review: Parts of an Ecosystem
Use the following info-graphic to define organism, population, and community.
Population Dispersion Patterns
Concept Cards: Density Independent Factors vs. Density Dependent Factors
Population Ecology Notes(Use your textbook, pages 92-104 to fill out your notes)
What is population density? / Population density is:
What is dispersion? List the three types. / Dispersion is the ______of spacing of a ______in an area.
· ______
· ______
· ______
______determines dispersion patterns.
What are density independent factors? / Density independent factors do not depend on ______
· Usually ______
· Include ______(ex. flood, drought, extreme heat or cold, tornadoes, hurricanes)
What are density dependent factors? / Density dependent factors depend on ______
· Often ______(ex. predation, disease, parasites, competition)
Define population growth rate and its characteristics. / Population growth rate explains ______
______
· Natality: ______rate
· Mortality: ______rate
· Emigration: number of individuals moving ______a population
· Immigration: number of individuals moving ______a population
Describe exponential growth. / Exponential growth starts slow (called the ______phase)
Exponential growth is illustrated by a ______curve.
It is also called ______growth.
All populations grow exponentially until ______
______
______become limited and population growth slows.
Describe logistic growth.
Describe logistic growth, continued / Logistic growth is illustrated by a ______curve.
Logistic growth occurs when ______
______at the carrying capacity. (K)
A population stops increasing when:
· births ______deaths
· emigration ______immigration
What is carrying capacity? / The ______that an environment can support for the long term is the carrying capacity, represented by the letter “K.”
Estimating Population Size: Mark and Recapture
Introduction
One of the goals of population ecologists is to explain patterns of species distribution and abundance. In today’s lab we will learn some methods for estimating population size and for determining the distribution of organisms.
Measuring Abundance: Mark-Recapture
Mobile animals are usually simpler to define as individuals, but harder to count, because they tend to move around, mix together, and hide from ecologists. Quadrats are not a good approach with mobile animals because immigration and emigration in and out of the study site make it hard to know what area the entire population occupies. For largemouth bass in a farm pond, you could easily draw a line around a map of the population, but how would you define the edges of a population of house sparrows in your community? Although house sparrows tend to be more concentrated in towns and urban areas, they do not stop and turn back at the city limit sign. For zoologists, a fuzzy definition of the space occupied by the population often forces an arbitrary designation of the survey group, such as the "population" of robins nesting on your campus in the spring. Knowing the number of animals in a designated study area is interesting, but we must bear in mind that the ecological population is defined in terms of interactions among organisms of the same species, and not by the ecologist's convenience.
After defining the individual and establishing the limits of the population you wish to count, your next task is to choose a counting method. Arctic and prairie habitats lend themselves to accurate survey by aerial reconnaissance. This approach works poorly in forests, at night, underwater, or in soil habitats. If animals can be collected or observed in a standard time or collecting effort, you can get an idea of relative abundance, but not absolute numbers. For example, the number of grasshoppers collected in 50 swings with an insect net through an old field community produces
data that could be used to compare relative abundance in different fields, but would not tell you how many grasshoppers were in the population.
For estimates of absolute numbers, mark-recapture methods can be very effective. The first step is to capture and mark a sample of individuals. Marking methods depend on the species: birds can be banded with a small aluminum ankle bracelet, snails can be marked with waterproof paint on their shells, butterflies can have labels taped to their wings, large mammals can be fitted with collars, fish fins can be notched, and amphibians can have nontoxic dyes injected under the skin.