1. What do you understand by the term “biodiversity”.
Starter Activity
Get set go!
Two minutes
What do you understand by the term “biodiversity”.
How are humans damaging the biodiversity of Planet Earth? 1 1

2. What are we going to learn about today?
Today we are going to look at ecosystems and the role of different organisms within in them.

3. A Pond Ecosystem. What’s the habitat? Identify two populations.
What makes up the community?
What makes up the ecosystem?

4. The ecosystem is made up of the habitat and the community.
What does this actually mean?
“An ecosystem consists of all the organisms living in a particular area and the non-living components with which the organisms interact.”

5. A niche is the role that an organism
plays within a community. It includes the
use it makes of the resources in its
ecosystem and its interactions with other
organisms in the community including
competition, parasitism, predation, light,
temperature and nutrient availability.

6. Niches in a Caledonian Pine Forest
(Temperate Coniferous Forest Ecosystem.)

7. Habitat (part of ecosystem occupied) Feeding level and/ or Diet
Name of species
Habitat (part of ecosystem occupied)
Feeding level and/ or Diet
When active

8. The Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) is one of only three native conifers found in the UK and our only true cone-bearing tree. Scots pine can trace its earliest British ancestry back to the end of the Ice Age. In the seventeenth century, a combination of tree-felling for industrial use and the notorious Highland clearances all but eradicated the tree in northern Scotland. There was estimated to be little more than 10,000 hectares of native Scots pine forest left in Scotland by the 1970s. This tree can grow as high as 40 metres and it forms the canopy layer of the Caledonian forest.  

9. The Wood Ant is a vital organism in the Caledonian Pine Forest By day the ants are known to predate upon caterpillars of species such as the sawfly and pine looper moth that eat Scots pine needles and so protest the trees. Ants also “milk” aphids for the sugary nectar like substance that they secrete. They protect their aphids as if they were farmers.  

10. The Conifer Roundhead toadstool
The Conifer Roundhead toadstool. One of the most beautiful and elusive of pinewood mushrooms, and in Britain known only from Scotland’s Caledonian Forest, the Conifer Roundhead grows on rotting pine stumps and pine branches buried in moss and needle litter. 

11. . 
The Juniper is a shrub or small coniferous evergreen tree that grows in the understorey or woodland edges of Scot’s pine forest.

12. The Pine Marten is a largely nocturnal arboreal mammal they are also relatively quick runners on the ground. Pine martens usually make their own dens in hollow trees. They are mainly active at night and dusk. They have small rounded, highly sensitive ears and sharp teeth for eating small mammals, birds, insects, frogs, and carrion. They have also been known to eat berries and bird's eggs.

13. The red squirrel makes a drey (nest) out of twigs in a branch-fork, forming a domed structure about 25 to 30 cm in diameter. This is lined with moss, leaves, grass and bark. The red squirrel eats mostly the seeds of trees, neatly stripping conifer cones to get at the seeds within fungi, nuts,  berries, young shoots, and bird eggs are occasionally eaten. Often the bark of trees is removed to allow access to sap.  
The active period for the red squirrel is in the morning and in the late afternoon and evening. It often rests in its nest in the middle of the day, avoiding the heat and the high visibility to birds of prey that are dangers during these hours.

14. The Capercaillie lives on a variety of food types, including buds, leaves, berries, insects, grasses and in the winter mostly conifer needles. Capercaillie are diurnal i.e. their activity is limited to the daylight hours. They spend the night time in old trees with horizontal branches. 

15. The Red Deer is Britain’s largest mammal
The Red Deer is Britain’s largest mammal. The deer are browsers by nature, pulling off leaves birch and rowan trees. They will also eat twigs, ivy and lichen from trees, especially during the winter. In open habitats, the deer become mainly grazers, cropping grass and browsing from small shrubs such as heather. Feeding takes place mainly during the early morning and evening, the deer resting and ruminating (chewing the cud) by day.

16. The Crested Tit makes a nest in a hole in rotting stumps
The Crested Tit makes a nest in a hole in rotting stumps. This bird often feeds low down in trees, but although not shy, it is not always easily approached. It will join winter tit flocks with other species.
Like other tits it is found in pairs and it feeds on insects (including caterpillars and saw fly larvae) and seeds. 

28. Homework-

29. Human influences affect biodiversity in an ecosystem.
Learning Outcomes
Human influences affect biodiversity in an ecosystem.