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Name: _____________________________________________ Date:_________ period:_____
Unit 3 Ecology, Populations, & Human Impact
Activator: Where Do You Stand?
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Essential Questions: How can I help to maintain a sustainable planet?
Essential Questions: How can I help to maintain a sustainable planet?
How do I affect the planet? How does the planet affect me?
How do I affect the planet? How does the planet affect me?
Read the following statement about world population growth and availability of natural resources.
Mark how you feel about each statement and provide a brief reason for why.
Countries should adopt laws that limit the size of a family to one or two children, similar to China’s onechild policy.
Strongly Disagree
Reason:
Disagree
Not sure
Agree
Strongly Agree
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Name: _____________________________________________ Date:_________ period:_____
Unit 3 Ecology, Populations, & Human Impact
Notes: 5.1 - How Populations Grow
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Essential Questions: How can I help to maintain a sustainable planet?
Essential Questions:
How
I help
maintain
a sustainable
planet?
How
do can
I affect
thetoplanet?
How
does the planet
affect me?
How do I affect the planet? How does the planet affect me?
Any relationship in which species live closely together is called
symbiosis. Parasitism is a relationship in which one organism lives
or inside another organism and harms it. Malaria is one of the
world’s greatest killers caused by a parasite called Plasmodium
falciparum. Female mosquitoes infect humans with this parasite and
back. Since that is how this parasite travels, female mosquitoes are
considered a vector, or method of travel, for both this parasite and
malaria. Once this parasite enters the human body, it gets stuck in
the liver where it reproduces about 10,000 times. Soon after entering
the body, the parasite bursts into the blood stream where it begins
entering red blood cells causing them to burst. Since red blood cells
help provide oxygen to different areas of the body, when they burst
causes a shortage of oxygen to necessary organs.
Directions: Refer to the diagrams on the left to
answer the questions below.
1. Scientists often study populations by looking at the
geographic range of organisms. The geographic range is
the area where a population of organism lives. According
to the map plotting where malaria exists now, describe
where female mosquitoes must live.
2. Most of the locations on map where malaria occurs are
warm and wet regions in the tropical and subtropical
areas. Using the last picture explain why it make sense
that malaria would be would thrive there?
3. Where the disease malaria is located is expected to shift over time.
A. Predict what type of climate the regions in red will develop? Why?
B. Predict what type of climate the regions in green will develop?
Why?
C. What could be contributing to these changes in climate? Explain.
on
it
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In addition to studying a populations’ geographic range, researchers also study the density and distribution, the
growth rate, and the age structures of animal populations.
Directions: Complete the graphic organizer on the next page using the information below.
Geographic Range:
The area where a population lives is called its
geographic range. A population’s range can vary lot
in size depending on the species. A bacterial
population in a rotting pumpkin, for instance may
have a smaller range, than dolphins in the western
Atlantic.
Density and Distribution:
Population density refers to the number of
individuals in a given space (i.e. the number of
people per square mile). Populations of different
species often have very different densities, even in
the same environment. For example, a population of
ducks in a pond may have a low density ( not many
ducks), while fish in the same pond community
have a higher density (lots of fish). Distribution
refers to how individuals in a population are spaced
out across the geographic range of that population –
randomly, uniformly, or concentrated in clumps.
Growth Rate:
A population’s growth rate determines whether the
size of the population increases, decreases, or stays
the same.
Age Structure:
To fully understand plant or animal populations,
researchers need to know the populations’ age
structure-the number of males and females of each
age group. Why? Because most plants and animals
cannot reproduce until they reach a certain age and
usually females animals can have babies, this
information helps scientist predict how populations
and resources may change over time.
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Directions: Analyze the diagram below and answer the questions that follow.
1. What 4 natural factors affect population
growth according to the image?
2. According to the image define what you
think immigration is.
3. According to the image define what you
think emigration is.
4. According to the image what factors add
individuals to a population?
5. What would need to occur to get a growth rate of zero over a period of time (aka the size of the
population to stay the same)?
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Name: _____________________________________________ Date:_________ period:_____
Unit 3 Ecology, Populations, & Human Impact
Practice: 5.1 - How Populations Grow
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Essential Questions: How can I help to maintain a sustainable planet?
How do I affect the planet? How does the planet affect me?
For the last several decades, humans have been making massive amounts of plastics each year. While plastic
is cheap, durable, multipurpose, and flexible, most plastics are made of chemicals that do not biodegrade,
meaning they cannot be broken down by living organisms. Most of these plastics are also not recyclable, if
recyclable at all. Much of this plastic, therefore, ends up as trash polluting our oceans. This plastic that enters
our oceans get stuck in these rotating ocean currents called gyres. While in these currents, the plastic gets
broken down by the sun (photodegrades) into small microplastics, but never disappears. Unfortunately, it
just becomes easier for marine life to eat.
There are currently five ocean gyres that are collecting massive amounts of plastic waste. The greatest of
these patches has been nicknamed, “The Great Pacific Garbage Patch” and is located in the North Pacific
Gyre. It is estimated to be larger than the size of Texas.
Plastic pieces are like tiny sponges that soak up toxins such as
pesticides (chemicals once used on plants to kill insects) from the
water and leak them out again when broken down. Animals that
eat the plastic, like gooseneck barnacles, for example, can pass the
plastic and the toxins up the food chain. A similar problem is
happening in the Great Lakes, which have been contaminated with
microbeads from body washes, hand soaps, and toothpaste.
Application Questions:
Directions: Use your notes and previous handouts to answer the following questions.
1. How would you describe the distribution of gooseneck barnacles in the picture if this is how they are
typically found? (Refer to pg. 3 of this packet.)
2. When new barnacles attach themselves to plastic debris and join similar populations in different areas
of the world, those populations are said to be growing how? (Refer to pg.5 of this packet.)
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While we know pollution destroys ecosystems, for better or for worse, pollution can create ecosystems too.
The billions of tiny pieces of plastic that are now floating in our oceans are exactly that. Microbes (tiny
organisms), insects, and other water organisms, that have no business thriving in the middle of the ocean
suddenly have found a new home amidst all the drifting plastic. Sea skaters, for example, have found a
plastic breeding ground paradise. The water insect skims across the ocean surface eating plankton and laying
its eggs on the hard surfaces of plastic waste. A 2012 study found that skater eggs increased with an increase
in the microplastic pieces entering the ocean. Occasionally, bigger
pieces of plastic will show up enveloped in thousands of sea skater
eggs, like a one-gallon plastic jug covered with 70,000 of them, 15
layers thick.
The effects of a sea skater explosion will ripple out though the food
chain, possibly benefitting some organisms but not others. Is it good? Is
it bad? All we can say for sure is that the balance of the ocean ecosystem
will likely change. The open ocean sufficiently has a lot more hard,
durable surfaces for organisms like the sea skater and barnacles.
Application Questions:
Directions: Use your notes and previous handouts to answer the following questions.
3. What factor in the environment is affecting how the sea skater population is changing? Explain the impact it is
having.
Microbes, which are tiny organism, have also found a new home on plastic garbage. What’s more, microbes can hitch
a ride on their floating plastic home, making an otherwise unlikely journey. Different from mussels and barnacles
microbial hitchhikers don’t need much surface to attach to. A study earlier this year kept track of some of the microbes
living on these plastic ecosystems and many of them were new to science, especially abundant were Vibrio, a group of
bacteria including those that cause cholera. Cholera is an infectious and often deadly bacterial disease of the small
intestine that typically infects people who drink contaminated water supplies. Cholera is known to cause severe
vomiting and diarrhea. Other bacteria and organisms are also being transported and invading new environments
forever changing ecosystems and making people sick.
Invasive species (or non-native species) introduced into new habitats (aka environments) – intentionally or
unintentionally – pose a major threat to global biodiversity (a variety of life). This is accomplished by non-native
species (or species new to the land) eating the native species (or existing populations of a lan), competing with them
for food or habitat, introducing fatal diseases, or decreasing genetic diversity by mating with native species. Because
these organisms are newly adapted to these areas, they often don’t have natural enemies, allowing them to multiply and
spread quickly.
Application Questions:
Directions: Use your notes and previous handouts to answer the following questions.
4. What are invasive species?
5. What consequence can invasive species have on the health of ecosystems?
6. What is allowing the geographic range of some otherwise immobile marine organisms to change?
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Name: _____________________________________________ Date:_________ period:_____
Unit 3 Ecology, Populations, & Human Impact
Notes: 5.1 – Types of Population Growth
Essential Questions: How can I help to maintain a sustainable planet?
How do I affect the planet? How does the planet affect me?
Directions: Read pages 132-135 and complete the graphic organizer below.
1. When do populations usually grow exponentially?
2. Why does exponential growth look like a J-shaped curve?
3. How are exponential growth and logistic growth related?
4. What factors do you think could cause the carrying capacity of a population to change?
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Name: _____________________________________________ Date:_________ period:_____
Unit 3 Ecology, Populations, & Human Impact
Virtual Population Lab
Purpose: In this investigation you will conduct an experiment
growing two species of protists: Paramecium aurelia and
Paramecium caudata. You will then compare the growth curves
of the populations when they are alone and when they are
together for populations of each species.
Pre-lab (before you collect data):
Define:
ProtistCarrying CapacityNichePrinciple of competitive exclusion (aka competitive exclusion principle)Directions:
 Go to Ms. Sabbara’s website and click on the Virtual Population Lab link.
 Look up vocabulary (above) and answer questions #1 & 2 (below).
 Perform the lab until the data table is complete.
o This lab has instructions on the left hand side; you will need to scroll down as you
read.
o Please turn the sound off.
o Do NOT use the journal or data table on the site. Use this worksheet instead.
 Graph your data on a separate sheet of graph paper using your graphing rules.
 Complete your analysis questions and your conclusion on a separate sheet of lined paper.
Lab:
1. What are the two objectives for this lab? (Use the website!)
2. Make a hypothesis about how you think the two species of Paramecium will grow alone and
how they will grow when they are grown together (Must be in format of If, then…
because…).
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Data (***ATTENTION: Be sure to multiply all your data by 2 as per the directions before
recording your data****).
Title ____________________________________________________________________________
P. caudatum grown
alone, cells/mL
P. aurelia grown
alone, cells/mL
P caudatum grown in P. aurelia grown in
mixed culture, cells/
mixed culture,
mL
cells/mL
Day 0
Day 2
Day 4
Day 6
Day 8
Day 10
Day 12
Day 14
Day 16
Analysis (Responses should not be on this paper. They should be typed, printed, and stapled to this
handout.)
1. Graph your data on graph paper using the graphing rules you learned.
2. On what day did the Paramecium caudatum population reach the carrying capacity of the environment
when it was grown alone? How do you know?
3. On what day did the Paramecium aurelia population reach the carrying capacity of the environment?
How do you know?
4. Explain the differences in the population growth patterns of the two Paramecium species. What does this
tell you about how Paramecium aurelia uses available resources?
5. Describe what happened when the Paramecium populations were mixed in the same test tube.
6. Explain how this experiment demonstrates that no two species can occupy the same niche.
Conclusion (Responses should not be on this paper. They should be typed, printed, and stapled to this
handout.)
In your conclusion…
A) Restate your hypothesis and determine if it should be accepted or rejected.
B) Support your claim with data (use numbers and analysis of numbers such as change or % change).
C) Address how (or to what extent) this lab demonstrates the principle of competitive exclusion.
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