What is a Lamprey?
Class/Scientific Name
Common Name
Example of Fish
1
2
3
1. There are 3 classes of fish. Fill in the above chart showing the class names and examples.
2. You need to find the differences between the three classes of fish. Fill in the necessary info.
Class 1=
Class 2=
Class 3=
Skeleton
Gill openings
Fins
Jaws
3. Draw a picture of the lamprey, the ray, and the bluegill and label the important differences listed
above.
Fish
Drawing
Differences
Lamprey
Ray
Bluegill
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Which one is the most “primitive”?
Which one is the most advanced?
Look at the pictures of the fish on your lab table. Tell me which ones are in each class.
When do you think a lamprey is weakest (which stage of its life)?
What could we do to it then?
Shark Movie Questions
1. Throughout this movie, they show sharks. Through their discussions and film, describe how sharks (which
belong to the class Chondrichthyes) are different from the bony fish we saw yesterday (Osteichthyes).
Difference between…
Skeleton
Gills
Teeth
Scales
Chondrichthyes (cartilage)
Osteichthyes (bony)
2. Why have shark attacks been going up lately when the shark population is going down?
3. How does a shark protect its eyes when it is feeding?
4. People once believed that sharks had to swim constantly. Now, we know different. What are two of the
hypotheses for sharks resting in the caves?
5.
a. What do remoras do for sharks?
b. Are they parasites?
6.
a. How many shark attacks are there per year?
b. How many are fatal?
7. Why do great white sharks miss the bait at the last moment and attack boats and shark cages (i.e. what
sense do they have that causes this to happen)?
8. The Moses’ sole is a fish that can be used to make what useful diving substance?
9. Why did the lady let the shark bite her arm?
10. Besides food, what are two other uses for sharks (Japanese people use sharks for these purposes)?
Lake Michigan Food Chain
You have a collection of creatures that were the primary creatures that lived in Lake Michigan until
man started showing up. Make a food web showing what eats what. The outlined color of each should
help you organize it. On the back of each one, you will find out what it eats. After you have created your
food web, answer the following questions in your notebook.
1. Look at your food web:
a. Of the 4 “levels”, what level are the producers?
b. What level are the primary consumers?
c. What level is the top of the food chain?
2. Energy flows through an ecosystem. Where does the original energy come from?
3. Materials “cycle” through an ecosystem. Creatures that take dead things and eat them are recyclers.
a. What is the name given to organisms that eat dead things?
b. What types of creatures live in Lake Michigan that would eat the dead things (note: only one is
in the food web—but try to name 3)?
4. Where is the most energy stored in the ecosystem (what level)?
5. Where is the most biomass (total amount of organisms) in the ecosystem?
6. As you move up the food chain, energy is lost. In other words, the producers have more energy than
all the other organisms. Where does that energy go?
7. Explain how the carbon that is in the body of the Lake Trout gets back to the producers (think carbon
cycle).
8. Yesterday, we looked at the graph of fishing pressure, lake trout numbers, and saw that the lake trout
numbers declined a great deal. When this happened, explain what would happen to the:
a. smaller fish population (secondary consumers)
b. zooplankton (primary consumers)
c. phytoplankton (producers)
9. Using the above question, answer why no one wanted to go to Michigan’s beaches when this was
happening.
10. Could overfishing be the only reason for the decline of the lake trout? Give me 2 other possible causes
for the decline of the lake trout.
Fish Research
The following questions are for Osteichthyes (bony fish), specifically bluegills. Bluegills can be caught in the pond at Dead
man’s Hill, Valhalla Park, or the Grand River.
1. Digestive system:
a. What do bluegills eat?
b. Name the organs that food goes through as it gets digested.
c. Look at a picture of a bluegill in the front of the room. How do they avoid being eaten?
d. Color-wise, how is a bluegill like a frog?
2. Nervous system:
a. Fish have a sensory system that is very different from all mammals. What is the name of that system?
b. How does that system work?
c. Give 2 reasons why this system is important to fish.
3. Respiration:
a. How do bluegills breathe? (gills, lungs, skin, diffusion?)
b. Why do gills have many tiny filaments?
c. How are gills different than lungs?
4. Circulation:
a. Does it have an open or closed circulation system?
b. Is it warm-blooded or cold-blooded?
c. How many chambers does a fish’s heart have?
d. Describe the path of a blood cell in a fish. Make sure you talk about the heart, the tail (or body), and the gills.
e. Mammals and amphibians have a two-loop circulation system. Do fish also have a two-loop system?
5. Excretion:
a. What organs do fish have for removing waste?
b. Salmon have incredibly effective kidneys. Why do you think they have this?
6. Reproduction:
a. Do fish use sexual or asexual reproduction?
b. Do most fish lay eggs or have live birth?
c. Is fish fertilization external or internal?
d. Do most fish take care of their young or not?
7. What do you think is the most successful backboned animal group in terms of overall numbers (fish, amphibians, reptiles,
birds, mammals)?
8. What do you think is the most successful backboned animal in terms of number of animal species?
9. What do fish have on the outside of their body to protect them?
10. What is the purpose of a fish’s swim bladder?
Betta Lab
1. Note the long fins and bright colors of these male bettas. Why do they have them?
2. What is the disadvantage of the long flowing fins and bright colors?
3. Do you think they are territorial?
4. Explain why.
5. Bettas can be kept in small glasses without an air stone to provide oxygen to the water. Guess how they
are adapted to do it.
Salmon Life Cycle
1. Draw the life cycle of a salmon. Describe each stage.
2. Name 2 predators of salmon.
3. Salmon always swim back to their birth stream. How do they find it?
4. What conditions do the eggs need to survive?
5. Eggs hatch, but the alevin does not need food for a while. Why?
6. King salmon lay about 2500 eggs. In a perfect stream, only 2 of those eggs will make it back to spawn
again. If this happens, what is an egg’s chance of reproducing as an adult?
7. Why don’t adult salmon die as often as smolts?
8. What would happen if there was a lot of construction next to the river and it filled in with dirt (from
erosion)?
9. What would happen to salmon if a dam was built on the river?
10. What happens to the salmon after they mate?
Fish and Fisherman
1) Make a single graph with 3 lines. Have one line be the first data (no fisherman), the second one (with
2)
3)
4)
5)
6)
7)
8)
fisherman), and the 3rd one (many fisherman).
Compare the graph with no fisherman to the one with 1-2 fisherman. Which one is more stable?
Why?
Which graph of the 3 represents the small fish (alewives) in Lake Michigan after the Lake trout were
removed?
When there was too many fishermen present what happened to the fish population?
One of the biggest things that we have worried about for the Great Lakes are invasive species, such as
sea lamprey and Asian Carp. Invasive species are species that aren’t native to an area and don’t have
any predators in the area. Why would we be so worried about invasive species?
Hypothesize what would happen if all of the frogs and bats in Michigan were to die off.
Why must we hunt deer in Michigan?
9. The light line shows prey (bluegills) and the dark line shows predators (bass). Why does the predator
population never reach as high as the prey population?
10. Why does the predator always lag behind the prey?
Alewives and Natural Selection
Alewives are the small fish (4-6 inches) that also came into the Great Lakes from the Atlantic Ocean. They are
a forage fish, meaning that many other fish eat them. When the alewives showed up, the lake trout were
almost completely wiped out by lampreys. Therefore, the populations of alewives blew up. When they ran
out of food, they would have massive dieoffs and you would find millions of dead ones along all of the shores
of the Great Lakes. Yum.
Imagine there are two types of alewives. They differ in their behavioral instincts. One instinctively hangs out
near weeds, rocks, drowned snowmobiles, and other cover (cautious). The other one stays in the open water
(piggy). The one that stays near cover doesn’t get as much food as the other one, but has more protection
against predators.
1. Lets say these two alewives showed up as the lake trout were at their all time lows. Which one would
produce the most eggs (piggy or cautious)? Why?
2. Lets say the piggy alewife produces 1000 eggs, and the cautious one produces 100. How many piggy
ones would there be the following year if all 1000 of the babies made 1000 babies?
3. How many cautious ones would there be the following year if all 100 of the babies made 100 babies?
4. In ten years, most of the alewives in Lake Michigan would be what type?
5. O.k. These fish eat and reproduce, eat and reproduce, and so on, and so on. What will eventually
happen to the population of alewives? Why?
6. What can the DNR do about this?
7. Now, the piggy-type fish still eats a lot and lays 1000 eggs. However, the new predator fish eats 999 of
the young every year. Therefore, how many piggy alewives will there be next year?
8. The cautious alewife still is laying 100 eggs, and 25 of them survive until next year. How many babies
will be created the following breeding season?
9. In 10 years, which type of alewife will be most abundant in the Great Lakes?
10. This scenario shows why it is good to have many differences in individuals in a population. Why is it
important to have variation in a population?
11. Sexual reproduction helps produce this variation. Explain how.
12. Explain why a killer disease like Ebola would never wipe out every human.