Capstone Project Everglades PDF

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Summary

Capstone project about Everglades Ecosystem, Custom Visual aid included.
1) List the producer(s) in your food web.
2) List the herbivores in your food web
3) Are there any organisms in your food web that are omnivores? On which trophic levels are they feeding?
4) List the c...

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Last Name 1 Capstone Project: Everglades Ecosystem

1) List the producer(s) in your food web. `

i) Lily Pads The plant convert sunlight, water, nutrients form the soil, carbon

dioxide and air into glucose. The glucose is then used as a food source for the plant. ii) Algae; This protis, or single celled plants use energy from the sunlight, carbon dioxide, and other nutrients in addition to their chlorophyll A to conduct photosynthesis. 2) List the herbivores in your food web. Unfortunately there are no herbivores in my ecosystem. 3) Are there any organisms in your food web that are omnivores? On which trophic levels are they feeding? The apple snail’s diet is omnivorous since they can eat vegetation and other invertebrate.

Press 2 The apple snail would be classified as a secondary consumer. The Crane also has an omnivorous diet, since they consume vegetation and small mammals and aviation. The trophic level for the Cranes would tertiary level consumers. 4) List the carnivores in your food web. i) The Pine Frog’s diet can be described as insectivores since they only consumer insects and small invertebrate. ii) The Large Mouth Bass consumers smaller fish, and insects iii) Burmese Pythons diet is carnivorous consisting of mostly aviation and mammals. iv) Broad Wing Hawks eat reptiles, insects, amphibians, aviation, and mammals, v) Alligators consume aviation, mammals and reptiles vi) Florida Panthers have a diet of mammals, aviation, reptiles, and /amphibians, 5) Identify and list a food chain within your food web that depicts at least three trophic levels. What organism in your selected food chain is a secondary consumer? i) Algae & Lily Pads are primary producers ii) Apple Snails & Pine Frogs are secondary consumers * iii) Larger Mouth Bass, Broad Winged Hawk, Burmese Python& Crane are tertiary consumers iv) The Florida Panther, & Alligator are Apex Predators 6) Are there any nonnative species in your food web? Briefly describe are they altering this food web in the Everglades ecosystem? The Burmese Python is an invasive species impeding the flow of the food web. The dynamic food web of the ecosystem is threatened since the python threatens the apex and

Press 3 tertiary tropic level species. The over consumption of alligators and bass causes an imbalance of the secondary consumers and primary producers. This lead to algae blooms, and lack of food for Hawks and Cranes. It would be an increase in competition at an unhealthy rate. 7) Choose a primary consumer in your food web. If its population suddenly started to decline, what density-dependent (biotic) factors could be causing it? A primary factor would be the increase in predation and competition. The Burmese python is already considered and invasive species. With the python consuming animals from several tropic levels there is an unchecked population decline in the tertiary and apex tropic levels. Less Alligators equals more Cranes , and more Cranes means less Tree Fogs which allows for the Apple Snail population to grow so rapidly that the lily pad and algae population expands too much thus causing an algae bloom. 8) Choose a secondary consumer in your food web. If its population suddenly started to increase, what density-dependent (biotic) factors could be causing it? Algae blooms would be a direct result of migration or lack of predation. The reason for this would be an indirect result of an invasive species. Following the theoretical instance from question seven if the Bass population declined as a result from lack of oxygen resulting from the algae bloom it would hinders the hawks food source availability, causing the panther and alligators to look elsewhere for food causing an separate density-dependent factor, migration. 9) Are there any keystone species in your food web? If a keystone species were removed from your food web, how would its loss impact the other organisms? A vital keystone species would be the American Alligator. During mating season the females build nests after the season is complete there is an important factor called peat with aids the vegetation/ primary consumers. These nests provide a source of water during the dry season

Press 4 since they hold water throughout the year even through droughts. Removal of the species would indirectly impact lower level species which use abandoned alligator nests for refuge and survival in the dry season. Beyond the lack of competition which would cause disarray for other species there is an environmental impact that causes population decay. This would cause the migration of species thus breaking down the food chain. 10) Are there any endangered or threatened species in your food web? If the species goes extinct, how would its loss impact the other organisms? The endangers species in my web is the Florida panther. A loss of the Florida Panther would allow the alligator population to go unchecked. Rapid growth of the alligator population would create a similar invasive habitat that the Burmese python has created, thus creating a chain effect that would cause density-dependent factors such as over competition and migration.

Work Cited: https://www.nps.gov/ever/learn/nature/alligator.htm https://biologydictionary.net/trophic-level/ https://www.fondriest.com/environmental-measurements/parameters/water-quality/algaephytoplankton-chlorophyll/...