Investigation 4, Part 2 Mono - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

Investigation 4, Part 2

Mono

Lake Food Web

Warm up

What is an ecosystem?

What is a community?

One of the main points about an ecosystem is the interaction between biotic and

abiotic

factors.

A community is groups of populations interacting with one another.

Mono Lake

One way the organisms in the Mono Lake system interact is by eating each other. (Nom, nom….Lunch!)

This is called a feeding relationship.

I have sets of cards of important organisms from Mono Lake.

Each card contains:

Photo

Common and scientific name

Life cycle and population dynamics

How it gets food

It’s role in the ecosystem

Mono Lake Cards

Read the cards to become familiar with the organism.

Organize the cards, picture side up.

Use the arrow strips to show feeding relationships between the organisms. (Who eats who?)

Every organism should be included in this chart.

If an organism is involved in more than one feeding relationship, indicate that with arrows.

Arrow Direction

Do spiders and flies have a feeding relationship?

Yes

Who gets eaten?

The spider eats the fly

Fly Spider

The arrow goes from the fly to the spider even though the spider eats the fly. The arrow represents the energy of the fly going into the spider.

Food Chain

In an ecosystem, many organisms survive by eating other organisms.

The benefits of the food eaten by one organism can then move to one and then another organism as each one is eaten.

The path that food takes from one to another organism is called a

food chain

.

Here is one I saw in your groups:

Planktonic

aglae

Brine shrimp California Gull Coyote

Food Web

I saw lots of organisms in your groups that were connected by more than one arrow.

Some organisms like phalaropes eat more than one organism.

Some organisms like brine shrimp are eaten by many organisms.

When you connect all the arrows, the arrows cross each other in complicated ways.

A diagram that shows all the feeding relationships is called a

food web

.

Types of Organisms

What types of organisms do not eat other organisms?

The two kinds of algae

How do they survive with out eating?

All living things need food/energy to survive, so they must make their own.

Organisms that make their own food are

producers

. They make food that is consumed in an ecosystem.

In the Mono Lake ecosystem, the producers are algae.

Types of Organisms

Producers like algae make their own food, but animals like brine shrimp and gulls do not.

How do they get their food?

They eat other organisms.

Organisms that eat other organisms are called

consumers

.

Types of Consumers

Consumers that eat producers are

primary or first-level consumers

.

Consumers that eat primary or first-level consumers are

secondary

or second-level

consumers

.

Consumers that eat secondary or second-level consumers are

tertiary or third-level consumers

.

Consumers that eat tertiary or third-level consumers are

fourth-level consumers.And so on……..

Another Type of organism

Some things never get eaten.

They die natural deaths.

These dead organisms are broken down and consumed by microorganisms called

decomposers

.

Bacteria and fungi are decomposers.

Everything that is not eaten by a consumer is eventually eaten by a decomposer.

Revisit your Food Web

This time show the

LEVEL

of the organisms in your web.

Producers on the bottom.

Primary consumers are the next level up, etc…

Some are Tricky

Red-necked phalaropes

Eat both brine shrimp and brine flies making them secondary consumers.

Also eat

planktonic

algae making them primary consumers.

California gulls

Eat mostly brine shrimp and flies.

Given the chance will eat eggs and chicks of snowy plovers and Caspian terns.

How can we show these dual roles on our charts?

What about decomposers? How should we show them?

Finish up

Lab sheet 21.