Name _____________________________________________ Date ___________________________
SOL 4.5
In your group, research your animal and fill in the chart below:
Your animal: _________________________________________
Describe the physical adaptations of your animal that allow it to live in its habitat and tell how it uses these
adaptations to meet its needs
Describe the behavioral adaptations of your animal that
allow it to live in its habitat
What are the producers in your animal’s habitat?
Describe the food chain on which your animal depends –
starting with the sun
Describe the size of your animal’s habitat and tell why it
depends on this size
Describe your animal’s niche in its community
Describe human impact on your animal’s ecosystem
Draw a picture of your animal’s habitat and be able to describe how it meets your animal’s needs
Draw a picture of your animal’s food chain – starting with the sun
Draw a picture of your animal and use arrows and captions to explain its physical adaptations
SOL 4.5
Terms you need to know:
1. Adaptation - ___________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
2. Producers - ____________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
3. Consumers - ___________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
4. Decomposers - __________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
5. Ecosystem - ____________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
6. Community - ___________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
7. Niche - ________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
8. Habitat - ______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
9. Community - __________________________________________________________________
10. Herbivores - ___________________________________________________________________
11. Carnivores - ___________________________________________________________________
12. Omnivores - ___________________________________________________________________
 You will present your knowledge to the class. Each student is responsible for being able to tell
how the different animals adapt to their environment and how they use their adaptations to
survive.
 You must be able to explain how a frog and a butterfly interact with their environment through
their various stages of their life cycles.
 You must be able to describe the positive and negative influences of human activity
Name ______________________________________________________
SOL 4.5 – Living Systems
Living Systems
4.5
The student will investigate and understand how plants and animals in an ecosystem interact with
one another and the nonliving environment. Key concepts include
a) behavioral and structural adaptations;
b) organization of communities;
c) flow of energy through food webs;
d) habitats and niches;
e) life cycles; and
f) influence of human activity on ecosystems.
All living things need energy to survive
All animals live in habitats. Habitats provide food, water, and shelter which animals need to survive, but
there is more to survival than just the habitat. Animals also depend on their physical features to help
them obtain food, keep safe, build homes, withstand weather, and attract mates. These physical features
are called physical adaptations. Physical adaptations do not develop during an animal's life but over many
generations. The shape of a bird's beak, the numbers of fingers, color of the fur, the thickness or thinness
of the fur, the shape of the nose or ears are all examples of physical adaptations which help different
animals to survive.
Producers
Producers: Photosynthesizing organisms
Producers are any kind of green plant. Green plants make their food by taking sunlight and using
the energy to make sugar. The plant uses this sugar, also called glucose to make many things, such
as wood, leaves, roots, and bark.
Plants are called producers. This is because they produce their own food! They do this by using
light energy from the Sun, carbon dioxide from the air and water from the soil to produce food - in
the form of glucose/sugar.
The process is called photosynthesis.
Consumers
Animals are called consumers. This is because they cannot make their own food, so they need to
consume (eat) plants and/or animals.
There are 3 groups of consumers.
Animals that eat only plants.
Animals that eat only animals.
Animals that eat both animals AND plants. Humans are also
omnivores!
Decomposers
Bacteria and fungi are decomposers. They eat decaying matter dead plants and animals and in the process they break them
down and decompose them. When that happens, they release
nutrients and mineral salts back into the soil - which then will be
used by plants!
Decomposers: An organism that primarily feeds on dead organisms or the waste from living
organisms
Decomposers are the garbage men of the animal kingdom; they take all the dead animals and
plants (consumers and decomposers) and break them down into their nutrient components so that
plants can use them to make more food. Decomposers in the forest come in many different shapes
and sizes. Shelf fungus is a fungus that grows on the sides of trees. It grows into the tree and
decomposes it slowly. Have you ever been walking through the woods and come across a dead log
that falls apart and is full of dirt? That is because decomposers have been eating and digesting that
log for several years, turning it into dirt that is wonderful for plants.
Ecosystems
The plants and animals that are found in a particular location are referred to as an ecosystem.
These plants and animals depend on each other to survive. In a delicate balance, these life forms
help to sustain one another in regular patterns. Disruptions to an ecosystem can be disastrous to all
organisms within the ecosystem.
As an example, consider what happens
when a new plant or animal is introduced
into an ecosystem, where it did not before
exist. The new organism competes with the
natural organisms from that location for
available resources. These unnatural
strangers can push other organisms out,
causing them to become extinct. This can
then affect still other organisms that
depended on the extinct organism as a source of food.
What is a habitat?
A habitat is a special place where a plant or animal calls home. Just like you have a
home or place to live, so do animals and plants. When we talk about an animal or a
plant's home it is more like a neighborhood than a "house." An animal needs four things
to survive in its habitat—food, water, shelter, and a place to raise its young. Just like you
have to go to the store to get food, an animal leaves its "shelter" to get the things they
need to live. If the population's needs aren't met, it will move to a better habitat.
Working Together
There are many plants and animals that will share the same habitat. The animals and
plants that live together in a habitat form a "community." The community of living things
interacts with the non-living world around it to form the ecosystem.
Because resources like water and food may be limited, plant and animal
species often compete with each other for food and water. The only way that
they can all live together is if they occupy slightly different niches or hold
different "jobs" in the community. No two species can occupy exactly the
same niche. They all have their own jobs or niche in the community.
A niche is the smallest unit of a habitat that is occupied by a plant or animal.
The habitat niche is the physical space occupied by the plant or animal. The
ecological niche is the role the plant or animal plays in the community found in
the habitat.
Food chains and food webs describe the feeding relationships between animals and
plants in a community.
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THE SUN provides food for GRASS
The GRASS is eaten by a GRASSHOPPER
The GRASSHOPPER is eaten by a FROG
The FROG is eaten by a SNAKE
The SNAKE is eaten by a HAWK.
 TREES produce ACORNS which act as food for many MICE and INSECTS.
 Because there are many MICE, WEASELS and SNAKES have food.
 The insects and the acorns also attract BIRDS, SKUNKS, and OPOSSUMS.
 With the SKUNKS, OPPOSUMS, WEASELS and MICE around, HAWKS,
FOXES, and OWLS can find food.
The Chesapeake Bay
Studies completed in the 1970s documented that
increases in agricultural development,
population growth, and sewage treatment plant
discharges were causing the Bay to become
nutrient enriched. Nitrogen and phosphorus are
the two primary nutrients required to sustain
aquatic biological productivity. Although
phosphorus is the limiting nutrient in most
freshwater systems, nitrogen is the limiting
nutrient in most coastal estuarine and marine
waters. As a result of elevated inputs, however,
these nutrients are often present at
concentrations in excess of basic nutrient
requirements, causing excessive growth of
phytoplankton and algae. This condition has two
effects:

 In shallow areas, the excess algae block
the sunlight that important submerged aquatic
grasses need to grow. This degrades the habitat and causes the eventual loss of these grass
beds.
In deeper areas, the decomposition of dead algae uses up available oxygen in the water.
During the warm summer months, oxygen in the bottom waters can only be replenished
slowly because little mixing with the high-oxygen surface water occurs. Many bottomdwelling organisms such as oysters, clams, and worms, which provide food for fish and
crabs, cannot survive this prolonged period of low oxygen.
There's nothing more “Chesapeake”
than the Bay's signature crustacean,
the blue crab. Callinectes
(“beautiful swimmer”) sapidus
(“savory”), a member of the
swimming crab family, is an
aggressive, bottom-dwelling
predator and one of the most
recognizable species in the Bay. The
blue crab population is vulnerable
to increased harvest pressure, as
well as the effects of habitat loss
due to poor water quality. Proper
management of the crab harvest, as
well as water quality improvements
and bay grass restoration efforts, will help restore the Bay's blue crab population and maintain this
valuable resource into the future.