Download Food Web - Humble ISD

HOO EATS WHO? – PART 1
Directions:
1) Define the vocabulary terms in your packet before you start making your food web.
Write the definitions in your note packet. When finished, show your vocab to your
instructor and (s)he will then give you’re the animal figures sheet and poster paper.
2) Work with a partner to follow the procedure below to make your food web. You can do
one web per pair, but you both need to do your own lab packet!
Materials:
 Copy of animal figures sheet
 Paste or tape
 Poster paper
 Scissors
 10 different colored pencils, crayons, and/or markers
Procedure:
1) Turn your poster paper so that the short sides are the "bottom" and "top".
2) Draw various plants (include flowers, seeds, grass, trees, etc.) on the bottom of the
paper. You can be creative and make it look like the ground, or you can do it so that
you are just drawing representative organisms.
3) Cut out the animal figures with their names. Otherwise, you may not be sure who (or
HOO! ) they are!!!
4) Paste the owl to the top of your paper. Again, you can be creative and put him in a tree,
or just glue him up there in the middle.
5) DO NOT glue any other organisms yet, just arrange the other animals on the page with
space between them to draw arrows in-between. But, DO NOT draw any arrows yet!
Arrange them with the grass and seedeaters near the bottom, and the organisms that
eat them above them. Those of you, who are being creative, need to get really creative
now! It is okay to have a vole hovering in the air, or you could draw him on to of a hill,
but he should be “above” the organisms he eats.
6) When they are all arranged, paste them in place (you may want to have your teacher
check and give you the okay, first!)
7) Now for the arrows, READ these directions CAREFULLY and ENTIRELY before you
draw any arrows - This is where the points are for this lab!!!
a. The arrows in a food web are supposed to show the movement of materials and
energy. So, you will draw the arrow from the organism being eaten, pointing to the
organism that is eating it.
b. This is a large food web, and can get very confusing to look at.
 Use 10 different colors to draw the arrows TO each of the 10 consumers FROM
the foods they consume. Ex) All of the arrows going toward the owl will be the
same color.
 Fill in the key on the last page to show the color you chose for each organism.
Name:
DATE:
Lab: Food Web
Analysis:
 After you have completed the food web, give one example of each of the following
terms from your food web. (Note: while a human is an omnivore, there are no
humans on your food web, so they cannot be used).

If any of the terms are not represented in your food web, put a star (*) next to the term,
and give me any example you can think of.
1) Food Chain:(Use arrows to show energy flow) Label producer, 10 , 2o, and 3o
consumers
2) Predator – Prey relationship:
3) Predator:
4) Prey:
5) Competition (name 2 organisms):
6) Producer:
7) Consumer:
8) Decomposer:
9) Herbivore:
10) Omnivore:
11) Autotroph:
12) Heterotroph:
13) Primary Consumer (1o) :
14) Secondary Consumer (2o):
15) Tertiary Consumer (3o):
16) What would happen if all of the flowers disappeared? ____________________________
17) What is the difference between a food chain & a food web?
18) Draw a pyramid from this web and label the energy available at each
trophic level if the producers have 5,000 Kcal.
Figuring out….. HOO eats WHO?
COLOR CODED ARROW KEY
Color
Consumer
“Foods” they Eat
Owl
Field mouse, Vole, Bird, Shrew, Mole, Lizard,
Grasshopper, Beetle, Moth
Field Mouse
Grass, Seeds, Grasshopper, Beetle, Moth
Vole
Grass, Seeds, Plant Roots Grasshopper, Beetle, Moth
Bird
Seeds, Grasshopper, Beetle, Moth
Shrew
Grasshopper, Beetle, Moth
Mole
Grasshopper, Beetle, Moth
Lizard
Flowers, Seeds, Grasshopper, Beetle, Moth
Grasshopper
Grass, Seeds, Leaves
Beetle
Leaves, Flowers, Seeds
Moth
Flowers
Name:
DATE:
Lab: Food Web – Part II
HOO EATS WHO? – PART 2 “Trouble in Paradise”
The forest, where all of the organisms on your web lived, was located in rural Kingwood in the
1960’s. During this time the use of dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane (DDT) was prevalent in
the United States.
1) Read the following article about DDT “Trouble in Paradise”.
2) Give each paragraph an appropriate title to describe the information provided.
Trouble in Paradise
DDT was used as a pesticide to protect crops on the
farms in the Ballston Spa area during the 1960’s. By
the process of runoff and erosion, DDT ended up in
the local lakes, rivers, and streams. In addition, due
to wind patterns, plant-life in the forest was also
covered with DDT.
The levels of DDT in tissues of various animals in the
forest and streams showed bioaccumulation factors
of 800x, and biomagnification factors up to 31x.
When we look at the whole food chain, the overall
magnification is over 200,000x!!!
Microscopic plant-like protests and forest plants had
800 times more DDT than was found in the water and
air. As these producers were consumed by the
herbivores, DDT levels were further biomagnified
31x.
As the herbivores were consumed, DDT levels were
biomagnified an additional 1.7x in 2o consumers.
In the top predators DDT levels were biomagnified
another 4.8x for a total biomagnification of 202,368x
over the levels initially sprayed and detected.
Paragraph Titles:
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
Did you use the title “Biological Magnification of DDT” for one of the paragraphs?
For which paragraph would this be an appropriate title?
Procedure:
Show the effects of biological
magnification on your food web by placing
dots on the organisms contaminated with
DDT. Each dot will represent a 1000-fold
magnification of the chemical as compared
to the amounts found in the local water
and air.
Food Chain
DDT Levels
Water & Air to
Phytoplankton & Plants
# of dots
800x
0.8
1o Consumers
31x
25.0
2o Consumers
1.7x
42.0
Owl
4.8x
202.0
Overall Magnification = 202,368x
Analysis:
1) Which statement is true?
i. Certain chemicals increase in concentration with each higher trophic level, just as energy does.
ii. Certain chemicals decrease in concentration with each higher trophic level, just as energy
does.
iii. Certain chemicals increase in concentration with each higher trophic level, while energy levels
actually decrease.
iv. Certain chemicals decrease in concentration with each higher trophic level, while energy levels
actually decrease.
2) Chemicals, like DDT, collect in the fatty tissues of animals, and so are passed on from one organism to
the next. Based on your knowledge of food webs and energy pyramids, why do the levels become
magnified in the next-order trophic level?
3) If the shrew population was to drop dramatically,
Name a population that would most likely increase. ____________
Why?
Name a population that would most likely decrease. ________________
Why?
4) Besides spraying insecticides, list 2 human activities that may disrupt ecosystems.
i.
ii.
5) Explain one alternative way to control the populations of unwanted insects that would be less
harmful to the environment.
Name ___________________________ Date ____________________ Period _______________
Environmental Systems
Use the word bank below to fill in each box describing a trophic level of the food web. Terms may be used more than once,
but only one term belongs in each box.
Word Bank: Autotroph, Carnivore, Decomposer, Herbivore, Heterotroph, Omnivore, Primary Consumer, Producer,
Secondary Consumer, Tertiary Consumer, Quaternary Consumer, 1st Trophic Level, 2nd Trophic Level, 3rd Trophic Level, 4th
Trophic Level
Use the above diagram to answer the following questions:
1. The arrows connecting each organism represent the flow of ___________________.
2. The removal of which organism from the food web would have the most devastating effect on the ecosystem?
____________________
3. Which organism belongs to two trophic levels? ____________________
4. Which organism would have the fewest individuals in the ecosystem? ___________________
5. Which organism obtains energy from all the others but does not prey on them? _____________________
6. What would be the effects of removing the raccoon from the ecosystem? ___________________
____________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________
For the following diagram, fill in each step of the pyramid with the name of the trophic level. Next, fill in the top two boxes of
the available energy per area of ecosystem.
Use the above diagram to answer the questions below
7. According the Law of Conservation of Energy, energy cannot be created or destroyed, but may change forms. What
form of energy is entering the ecosystem represented by the trophic pyramid? ____________________
8. Approximately only 10% of the usable energy in one trophic level is transferred to the next trophic level. What is the
unusable form of energy that composes the remaining 90%? _____________________
9. The size of each trophic level illustrated represents the amount of usable energy in a trophic level. What two other
factors, besides available energy, might the size of the trophic levels represent? _________________________ and
_________________________.
Answer the following:
10. Each of the following statements describes a stage in land succession. Number the statements in the order that they
would occur after a glacier retreats to expose bare rock.
______ A mature forest made of shade-tolerant birch is present
______ Bushes and small shade-intolerant trees are present
______ A thin layer of organic matter covers the bare rock, allowing some herbs and grasses to grow
______ mosses and lichens cover the exposed rock, and begin to break it down with the help of weathering.
______ grasses and some bushes dominate the landscape.
______ fast-growing, light dependent (shade-intolerant) pines start to form a forest.
11. What kind of ecological succession is described above? ___________________________
12. Define the following
Mutualism: __________________________________________________________________________________
Parasitism: __________________________________________________________________________________
Commensalism: ______________________________________________________________________________