An ecosystem consists of all organisms (living things) in an area, plus the natural landscape.
A prairie is flat or gently rolling grassland
with few trees, such as in parts of central United States and Canada.
Organisms often found in a prairie
ecosystem include prairie dogs, swift foxes, black-footed ferrets, and of course the grass itself.
1. Which organism (grass, prairie dog, ferret, or fox) do you think is a producer (does not depend on other organisms for its food)? Grass
2. Organisms that depend on other organisms for food are consumers. Which consumer you think is a herbivore (eats plants only)? Prairie dogs
3. Which consumers are carnivores (eat meat)? ferret and fox
Gizmo Warm-up: Life on the Prairie
1. The population of prairie dogs is all the prairie dogs living in the village. In the Gizmo, what are the starting numbers of
Grass: 4,000 tons Prairie dogs: 25,000
Ferrets: 80 Foxes: 10
2. Click Advance year 10 times. On the DATA tab, look at the Bar graph and the Line graph. Do the populations change very much, or are they in equilibrium (stable)? Explain.
Grass and prairie dogs increase a little bit, but for the most part the data is in equilibrium.
Get the Gizmo ready:
Activity A: ● Click Reset. Grass ● Be sure Show populations is selected.
Question: How is grass important to a prairie ecosystem?
1. Observe: Remove ALL animals from the prairie by clicking the minus (–) button next to each animal many times. Click Advance year 20 times. Does grass survive by itself? Explain.
Because grass does not depend on other organisms for food, it is a producer. Grass gets what it needs from the Sun, air, and soil.
2. Predict: Click Reset. Predict what will happen to the prairie dogs, ferrets and foxes if half of the grass were removed. Write “increase” or “decrease” in each blank below.
3. Experiment: Remove about half of the grass by clicking the minus – button. There should now be about 2,000 tons of grass. Click Advance year twice, and look at the Bar graph or the Line graph. What happened to each population—increase or decrease?
4. Think about it: What do you think will happen if you continue advancing years?
The animals populations will continue to decrease until the go extinct.
5. Experiment: Test your prediction by clicking Advance year until 20 years have passed.
A. What do you notice? The animal populations increase
B. Does the ecosystem return to equilibrium? Yes
C. How do you know? The numbers increase back up to where
they started at
6. Extend your thinking: Suppose a fire swept through the prairie. The animals ran away, but about half the grass was burned. What would be the long-term results of this natural event?
There would be a decrease in prairie dogs which would lead to a decrease in ferrets and foxes.
Activity B: Get the Gizmo ready: Making a food ● Click Reset. chain
Question: How do animals affect the prairie ecosystem?
2. Predict: Based on your hypotheses, predict how the changes below will affect the other animals. Write either “increase” or “decrease” next to each “P” (for “prediction”) in the table.
3. Test: Click Reset. Add as many prairie dogs as the Gizmo allows. Click Advance year once. Record the effects on the other three organisms in the table next to “A” (for “actual”). Then click Reset and do the same with ferrets, and then again with foxes.
4. Analyze: In a food chain, each animal eats only one other animal or plant. Based on your experiments, what is the food that each animal eats? Explain how you know.
Prairie dogs are herbivores, so they only eat plants and ferrets are prey to foxes and foxes are larger. Ferret and foxes are both carnivores
5. Apply: Now complete the Prairie Ecosystem food chain. Arrows point toward the animal that is eating. For example, “Mouse → Hawk” would mean that the mouse is eaten by the hawk.
Introduction: Once common, the black-footed ferret is an endangered animal. In 1986 there were only 18 black-footed ferrets alive; today there are almost 1,000.
Question: What would happen to the ecosystem, long-term, with no black-footed ferrets?
1. Form a hypothesis: Based on what you have seen so far, what do you think would happen if black-footed ferrets died out, or went extinct? Explain in detail.
The prairie dog population would increase and the fox population would decrease.
2. Experiment: Click Reset, and remove all the ferrets from the prairie dog town. Click Advance year for 12 years. What happens?
The population of ferrets and foxes decreased to 0.
3. Analyze: Why did removing ferrets have such a powerful effect on the prairie ecosystem?
Ferrets control the prairie dog population and they are prey to the fox population.
4. On your own: Investigate other major changes to the prairie ecosystem. Run each experiment for 20 years to see what the long-term results would be.
A. Give an example of a change that the ecosystem was able to recover from and return to
equilibrium.
Advancing the fox population will eventually return the ecosystem to equilibrium
B. Give an example of a change that the ecosystem was not able to recover from. Can you explain why?
The population of grass is decreasing to 0, therefore every population that relies on
grass or relies on an animal that needs grass will decrease until they are extinct.
