Names: ______________________________
How Adaptations affect Competition and Predation
E.Q.: How do adaptations help an organism survive?
Adaptations are characteristics that help an organism survive in its environment.
Competition occurs because resources on Earth are limited. In nature, organisms
compete for resources such as ________, ____________, and ____________. In
this lab you are going to model 4 different species competing for food in the same
area. Then you are going to draw conclusions about the relationship between
the species adaptations and how it affected its ability to hunt for food.
Procedure:
1. Divide the “food collecting tools” among the group members.
2. Give each species a plastic cup to collect their “food” in.
3. Count out 100 beads (mice) and distribute them evenly on your tables
inside your Ecosystem (hula-hoop).
4. When I say “go”, you will have 1 minute to pick up (eat) as many mice as
possible and put them in your cup. You may only use the hand holding the
“food collecting tool” to pick up the mice (beads). If you touch the “mice”
with your hands, you die instantly.
5. After one minute stop and count how many beads each organism has
collected, record your group’s data.
6. You must have at least 8 beads (mice) to stay alive.
7. Put your beads back and spread out 50 beads and repeat steps 2-5.
8. Now spread out 25 beads and repeat steps 2-5.
9. Now spread out 12 beads and repeat steps 2-5.
Tweezers = Hawk
Spork = Owl
Spoon = Wolf
Toothpick = Snake
Data Collection:
Trial/Species
Trial 1
Trial 2
Trial 3
Trial 4
Hawk
Owl
Wolf
Snake
Think it over:
1. In this activity, you represented an organism competing for a limited resource.
Were you a predator or prey? ____________ What was your limited resource?
__________________________________________________________________
2. How does this activity model competition?
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
3. How did the amount of available resources affect competition in this model?
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
4. Would your species survive in this area if mice were the only food available
without any adaptations? List your species then put yes or no.
_______________________ Why or why not? Again, list your species and explain
why it would or would not survive in this area.
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
5. Based on which species collected the most mice, what adaptations would you
make to your species to help it catch more food?
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
6. What species had the best adaptations in this environment (who collected the
most food)?
__________________________________________________________________
7. Explain the relationship between competition and adaptations.
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
8. How observant were you?? Was there a color mouse that was eaten less
frequently? Infer what adaptations in this prey were helpful?
__________________________________________________________________
9. IF you could design any adaptation in your predator species to enable it to hunt
bead mice better, what would it be?
__________________________________________________________________
10. Looking back at the essential question, explain “how do adaptations help an
organism survive?”.
__________________________________________________________________
Graph your results on the graph paper provided. Remember to watch your units
and label everything!