1. Unit 1 Impressive Interactions (Interactions & Ecosystems)

2. Who Interacts With Whom?
Examine your identity card
What are you? Where might you live?
Move around the classroom and find 4 different organisms you think your organism interacts with
What does it mean to INTERACT?
Write down your connections & HOW they connect
Draw in a line connection your organisms on the class mural
Return your identity card to Miss Robertson

3. How would YOU feel if the organism shown was the last one of its kind left on Earth?
What might be some of the consequences?

4. Needs of Living Things What are the basic needs of a wolf?
What are the basic needs of a tree?

5. ALL living things share the same basic needs
Food
Provides energy
Organisms have to make it or obtain it (eating)
Water
Exchange of gases
Oxygen ↔ Carbon dioxide
Habitat
Suitable living conditions
Climate, landscape, shelter
Interactions
ALL living things share the same basic needs

6. Ecosystems
Sketch/draw/write what you think is a representation of an ecosystem
WHY do you think it is an ecosystem?
How would you define an ecosystem?

7. An Organism’s World Species Population
Single type of organism that reproduces with its own kind
Population
Members of the same species that live in a specific area

8. Community
Populations of different species live in the same area

9. Ecosystem
Where living things interact with other living and non-living things in a shared environment

10. Living =
Non-living =
Other examples?
Biotic
Abiotic

11. How can an ecosystem be studied?
Transect Line
Study specific area along a single line
Quadrat
Study specific area contained within a grid

12. Groups of 3-4
Practice a Transect
Lay your transect line down straight across the floor
Count the population of everything you find under the line at each meter
Mark the location of everything on your results sheet
Practice a Quadrat
Lay your quadrat down
Count the population of everything you find in the quadrat

13. What were some of the benefits of using the transect?
The quadrat?
What were some of the drawbacks of using the transect?
Was the transect reliable? Why?
If you only used this data to describe your classroom, would it be useful? Why or why not?
Which method do you think would be most beneficial when studying an ecosystem? Why?

14. Laboratory Activity 1: Quadrat Study

15. Case Study 1: The Wolves of Yellowstone
What interactions are present? Between what organisms?
How were the interactions affected by changes in the ecosystem?

16. Yellowstone Before & After Reintroduction of the Wolf

17. Wolves are a keystone species
Hold the ecological balance together in an ecosystem
Maintain the structure and integrity of the community
Wolves are a bio-indicator species
The presence or absence of wolves indicates whether or not the environment is healthy

18. Last wolf was killed in 1926
By the mid 1930’s all the willow, aspen and poplar were stunted to below knee height near water bodies
How are wolves connected to the healthy and survival of Willow and Aspen trees?

19. Without natural predators, elk population dramatically increased
Elk forage on Willow and Aspen tree leaves & young shoots
Large herds travelling along river banks destroyed young trees

20. The ecosystem collapsed
Beaver disappeared from Yellowstone by the mid 1930’s
Song birds & waterfowl were disappearing
Species of flower were disappearing
Fewer scavenger species

21. Between wolves were captured from Northern Alberta and Yoho National Park and were re-introduced to Yellowstone
The wolf population increased with an abundance of food sources

22. Beaver started to return to Yellowstone after only 1 year of wolves being present
Why?