1. Activity 79 Eating for Energy
Challenge:
How are the energy relationships among organisms in an ecosystem affected by the introduction of a new species?

2. Key Vocabulary Definitions
Ecosystem – The interactions between all living and nonliving parts of any given environment or habitat. Consumer – An organism that obtains energy by eating other organisms Producer – An organism that makes their own food Photosynthesis – the process organisms use to make chemical energy (food) from light energy (the sun) Plankton – microscopic organisms found in aquatic environments.

3. What foods do humans use as sources of energy?
Cow
Grass
Wheat
Consumer: organisms that obtain food by eating other organisms
Where does the grass of wheat obtain food?

4. What makes up an ecosystem?
An Ecosystem is a group of living organisms, their habitat, and the non-living things they interact with

5. Doing the Activity: Read pages 41-45.
Record the answers to the Stopping to Think Questions in your notebook (IN COMPLETE SENTENCES)
Answer Analysis #1 and 5 in your notebooks.

6. Stop to Think 1
Brainstorm ways in which zebra mussels might accidentally be spread from one lake to another.

7. Stop to Think 2
Why are producers such as plants, an essential part of any ecosystem?

8. Stopping to think 3 Copy the food web into your notebooks.
Identify each organism as a producer or consumer.
Add humans to this food web.
In the lake food web, humans are consumers. Are humans always consumers? Explain.

9. Stopping to Think 4
Using the above food web as a guide, create a lake food web that includes zebra mussels.
Be sure to show how zebra mussels get their energy AND how other organisms get money from them.

10. Stopping to Think 5
Look at the zebra mussel map. The lines across the U.S. represent large rivers.
Where do you predict zebra mussels will be found in the next 10 years? The next 20 years? The next 50 years? Explain your predictions.

12. Are producers a necessary part of the Northern pike’s ecosystem?

13. Analysis #1 You may have changed your thinking for:
#3. You should realize that the size of the introduced species has very little effect on the problems it can cause.
#4. You should realize that zebra mussels are not at the top of the food web, although their predators cannot keep up with their population growth
#5. There is no doubt that zebra mussels are harmful – BUT, it does say that the Great Lakes ecosystem is 600% clearer than before they were introduced.

14. Analysis #2
Discuss how your ideas changed…

15. Analysis #5
Effects an introduced species can have on an ecosystem are:
Can outcompete native species
May provide food, allowing predator populations to grow, while others shrink if their food source is depleted

16. Analysis Question #3 is Graded!!
Make sure you explain what happens to each population (every one!!) to receive full credit.
This is a SI Assessment. Refer to your Rubrics 