Ecosystem Basics
Food Chains & Webs
Ecosystem Dynamics
Invasive Species
Swan Valley Forest
100

100: A living thing that affects an ecosystem, such as a bear or a tree.

What is a biotic factor?

100

100: A single path of energy transfer through organisms in an ecosystem.

What is a food chain?

100

100: An animal that hunts and feeds on another organism.

What is a predator?

100

100: The two "requirements" needed to be considered an invasive species.

What are being non-native and harmful?

100

100: This native tree produce leaves with rounded lobes, distinct from red oaks.

What is a White Oak?

200

200: A nonliving factor in an ecosystem, such as rainfall, sunlight, or water.

What is an abiotic factor?

200

200: A network made up of a series of overlapping food chains.

What is a food web?

200

200: An animal that is hunted and eaten by a predator.

What is prey?

200

200: This invasive reptile was introduced to the Florida Everglades and devastated local food webs by eating primary consumers.

What is the Burmese Python?

200

200: This invasive vine strangles native trees in the Swan Valley Forest.

What is Bittersweet?

300

300: All the living and nonliving things in an area and the interactions between them.

What is an ecosystem?

300

300: What the arrows between organisms in a food chain or food web represent.

What is the direction of energy transfer?

300

300: If the predator population (foxes) increases, what will initially happen to the prey population (rabbits)?

What is decrease?

300

300: How invasive plants harm native plant populations in a forest.

What is by blocking sunlight or stealing nutrients/water?

300

300: This invasive dark-berried shrub blocks sunlight from reaching native plant saplings.

What is Buckthorn?

400

400: Any substance or object in an environment needed by an organism for survival.

What is a resource?

400

400: Organisms like grass, trees, and algae that make their own food.

What are producers?

400

400: The maximum population size of a species that an ecosystem can support based on available resources.

What is carrying capacity?

400

400: A action boaters can take to prevent spreading aquatic invasive species between lakes.

What is cleaning all mud and plants off the boat before entering a new body of water?

400

400: This native pine species features long needles in clusters of five and is the state tree of Michigan!

What is a White Pine?


500

500: What occurs when two or more organisms rely on the same limited resources.

What is competition?

500

500: The four levels of organisms in a food web, starting with the plants.

What are producers, primary consumers, secondary consumers, and tertiary consumers?

500

500: If a disease wipes out a primary consumer like mice, name a population that will increase and one that will decrease as a result.

What is - producers increase and secondary consumers decrease?

500

500: To stop the spread of forest pests and invasive species, campers should buy this locally.

What is firewood?

500

500: Barberry is an invasive shrub with sharp thorns, and provides a habitat for these organisms.

What is are ticks?