Food Webs

Today in class students had their first DBQ (Data Based Question) Pop Quiz (see answer below). After the quiz we looked at the TASIS Effort Scale to remind everyone that an effort 5 is truly outstanding where as an effort 3 is satisfactory work.

We spent the rest of the class learning about food chains, webs and trophic levels (Assessment Statements: 5.1.3 through 5.1.10).

Tonight for homework: Complete 5.1.8 in your notebook. To help you, go to the Ecology/Evolution (5, D, G) page and click on "Basic Build Your Own Food Web -Interactive"
Here are the answers from today's DBQ Pop Quiz (you can find the question on page 175 of the book).

1. The ecological concepts in Charles Darwin's description are food webs, biotic/abiotic interactions and decomposition.

2. The entangled bank is an ecosystem. An ecosystems is defined as a collection of all organisms that live in a particular place, which includes the nonliving or physical environment. When Darwin refers to the "birds singing on bushes [...] and with worms crawling through the damp earth." This is a perfect example of an ecosystem. Identifying his description as a habitat would be incorrect, because a habitat would only refer to the environment in which a species normally lives and not the other organisms in the area. Additionally, stating that Darwin's description is of a community, would be incorrect because a community is the assemblage of different species; it does not include the environment.

3a. The relationship between insects and other species is predation. The insects are food for the birds.

3b. The relationship between worms and other species is decomposition. The worms help to breakdown the other organisms.