Effects of Change

Effects of Change The prairie ecosystem has many populations. Use these organisms to create a food web. The producers are in green, plant-eaters in blue, and animal- eaters in orange. Tallgrass Shortgrass Wildflowers Big Bluestem Pronghorn Buffalo Mice Prairie Dog Black Footed Ferret Prairie Chicken Burrowing Owl Grasshoppers Beetles Snakes

A Look at Overgrazing The next slide will show an overhead view of a prairie. For this slide, we will only focus on the grass and buffalo. The grass is shown as green squares and the buffalo as black ovals.

Grassland Each column has 10 squares of grass. There are 20 columns. Calculate how many squares of grass are available.

Grassland Each buffalo needs 25 squares of grass to survive. How many buffalo can live in this area?

Grazing What will happen if we put 20 buffalo in this area?

Effects on other Populations What will happen to the grass? Explain your answer.

Effects on other Populations What will happen to the ferrets? Explain your answer. Image courtesy of Clip Art

Highways What effects will building a highway have on the area? Image courtesy of Clip Art