Prairie Producers
These organisms make their own food using sunlight through photosynthesis.
What are producers?
his large grazing mammal is one of the best-known animals of the North American prairie.
What is a bison?
This shows the transfer of energy from one organism to another as organisms eat and are eaten.
What is a food chain?
A characteristic that helps an organism survive in its environment is called this.
What is an adaptation?
A long period with much less precipitation than normal is called this.
What is a drought?
This is one of the most important types of plants found throughout the shortgrass prairie.
What is grass?
An animal that eats plants is called this.
What is a herbivore?
Unlike a food chain, this shows many connected feeding relationships within an ecosystem.
What is a food web?
Prairie grasses have extensive root systems that help them survive periods when this resource is scarce
What is water?
When too many animals graze an area and remove large amounts of vegetation, this can occur.
What is overgrazing?
During photosynthesis, plants use sunlight, water, and this gas from the atmosphere to make food.
What is carbon dioxide?
This prairie animal is a small mammal that lives underground in burrows and can be an important food source for predators.
What is a prairie dog?
In a simple prairie food chain, grass → grasshopper → frog. The grasshopper is what type of consumer?
What is a primary consumer?
Prairie dogs live in underground burrows. One advantage of living underground is protection from this environmental condition.
What is extreme heat/cold?
A species that is introduced into an ecosystem and can negatively affect native organisms is often called this.
What is an invasive species?
Shortgrass prairie plants tend to be shorter than plants in tallgrass prairies because this environmental resource is often limited.
What is water?
An animal that hunts and eats other animals is called this.
What is a predator?
If grass decreases because of drought, animals that depend directly on grass for food may also decrease. This demonstrates that organisms in an ecosystem are this.
What is interdependent?
An organism's behavior that helps it survive, such as burrowing or hunting at a particular time of day, is this type of adaptation.
What is a behavioral adaptation?
If a drought causes fewer grasses to grow, what would likely happen to herbivores that depend on those grasses for food?
What is their population would likely decrease?
A plant that makes its own food is considered this level of a food chain.
What is a primary producer?
Hawks, coyotes, and snakes can all fill this role in a prairie food web.
What is a predator/consumer?
Energy enters most prairie ecosystems through this source and is captured by producers.
What is the Sun?
Many prairie plants grow from their bases rather than only from their tips. This helps them survive when grazing animals eat the upper portions of the plant.
What is a growth adaptation that allows grasses to regrow after grazing?
A wildfire can initially remove much of the vegetation from a prairie, but fire can also play an important role in maintaining prairie ecosystems by limiting this type of plant growth.
What are trees/woody plants?