1. Case Study: The Effect of Coyote Removal in Texas By: Noah Hibbard and Emma Church

2. Location:

3. Food chain of the plains of West Texas: Primary Producers: Various species of grasses and herbaceous flowering plants (forbs) Primary Consumers: Jackrabbits Cottontails Ground squirrels Rodents Secondary Consumers: Badgers Bobcats Skunks Grey fox Tertiary Consumer: Coyote

4. Why Remove Coyotes?

5. Coyote Removal Humans eliminate coyotes because: increasing game populations of those species to protect their livestock, pets, and small children The effect of removing coyotes from an environment varies for each different community.

6. Effect of coyote removal on primary and secondary consumer population

7. How Population Size is Affected by: *Natality- The ratio of the number of births to the size of the population; birth rate *Immigration- the act of entering another place *Mortality- death rate *Emigration- the act of leaving one place Reasons for the Exponential Growth, Plateau, and Transitional Phase: Addition and Removal of Coyotes

9. Why did the rodent species increase after the coyotes were removed?

10. After the three year experiment, what would be the repercussions of adding coyotes back into the ecosystem?

11. What would happen to the coyotes if more rodents were introduced into the ecosystem?

12. Information Received from: http://sciencecases.lib.buffalo.edu/cs/files/coyotes.pdf