Environmental Science
Sept. 4, 2015
SEV1. Students will investigate the flow of energy and cycling of mater within an ecosystem
and relationship to human society.
b. Relate energy changes to food chains, food webs, and to trophic levels in a generalized
ecosystem, recognizing that entropy is a primary factor in the loss of usable food energy
during movement up the trophic levels.
e. Distinguish between abiotic and biotic factors in an ecosystem and describe how matter
and energy move between these.
SEV3. Students will describe stability and change in ecosystems.
a. Describe interactions between individuals (i.e. mutualism, commensalism,
parasitism, predation, and competition).
Learning Objective:
Discuss objectives of the lab activity:
1. Describe in general terms ways that different species in a community can interact.
2. Explain how interactions can cause changes in a species morphology or behavior.
3. Identify types of community interactions from specific examples.
In ecology a community is a group of populations of different species in the same area. There are a huge
number of ways that these different populations interact so ecologists use categories of interactions based on
the effects on each species to help them discuss specific examples of interactions. There are four commonly
used categories, Mutualism, Commensalism, Exploitation (sometimes called Preditor/Prey interactions), and
Competition.
Essential Question:
1. How do species in a community interact?
New Vocabulary: Organism, population, community, ecosystem, biome, biotic, abiotic,
habitat, niche, food chain, food web, producer, consumer, herbivore, carnivore, omnivore,
detrivore, scavenger, decomposer, competition, predation, mutualism, commensalism,
parasitism, energy pyramid, trophic level.
TITD: Students need a laptop for the lab activity
Opening: What happens to an ecosystem when animals are introduced that do not originate from that
ecosystem? What ecosystem is native to the python? What is the symbiotic relationship?
 Students will view a brief video about the impact of pythons being released in the Everglades
and their devastating impact on the ecosystem.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hkmCCRcz_0
Work:
Students will continue the Community Interactions Lab. ..\Ecosystem\Lab9CommunityInteractions (1).pdf
 Students will use the laptop to view slides of the different types of samples.
Closing: What is the relationship where both species benefit?
