Name:______

Ecology Computer Simulation

What are the Variables:

Answer these questions in your own document. You may use the internet to help you answer these questions.

Background information.

  1. How big are moose?
  2. What do moose eat?
  3. How many offspring do moose have in a year?
  4. How old does a female moose have to be before she can give birth?
  5. Rabbits (Snowshoe hare) get how big?
  6. How many offspring does a rabbit have in a year?
  7. How old does a female rabbit have to be before she can give birth?
  8. What do rabbits eat?
  9. How big are wolves?
  10. What do wolves eat?
  11. How many offspring do wolves have in a year?
  12. How old does a female wolf have to be before she can give birth?

Computer simulation questions

  1. What does growth rate mean?
  2. Why do rabbits have a higher growth rate number than moose?
  3. Rabbit have a growth rate that is 3 times higher than a moose. Explain why that makes sense.
  4. What is carrying capacity?
  5. Why do rabbits have a higher carrying capacity?
  6. The carrying capacity of rabbits is 1000 and moose are 400. Do you think that an ecosystem that could support 1000 rabbits by themselves could support 400 moose by them selves? Explain
  7. What does impact of the food supply mean?
  8. A moose has three times the impact on the food supply as a rabbit does. Does that seem reasonable? Explain.
  9. What does ability to escape predators mean?
  10. Rabbits have a higher number for their ability to escape predators. What do you think that means?
  11. What does size of animal mean?
  12. How much bigger is a moose number than a rabbit’s? Does that seem reasonable?
  13. What is death rate of predator mean?
  14. What are two things that cause predators to die if nothing eats them?
  15. If I wanted to change the simulation to say that moose had more babies every year what variable would that be?

Simulation:

  1. How many rabbits, wolves and moose does this simulation start out with?
  2. Which animal starts reproducing the fastest?
  3. How many moose, wolves and rabbits are there after 6 generations?
  4. Why do you think the wolf population starts to decline in the beginning?
  5. What is the highest the rabbit population gets?
  6. What happens to the wolf population right as the rabbit population peaks?
  7. What do you think is happening?
  8. Briefly explain what is happening in the chart

Make your own simulation:

  1. What happens if you start with 100 wolves instead of 10?
  2. What happens if you start with 100 rabbits instead of 10?
  3. What happens if you start with 100 of every body?
  4. Why is it so my different than starting with 10 of everybody?
  5. Can you make one of the animals go extinct? How?

Evaluation

  1. Do you think this matches how nature works? Why or why not?
  2. What is good about this simulation
  3. What is bad about this simulation?
  4. What could be done to make it better?

Change the animals:

Change the predator and two prey items to animals that you choose.

Ex: Cougar, squirrel, deer.

Research about each animal to determine their numbers.

Next change the variables to what you thing sounds right?

Experiment with the system until you get a stable population?

Print the graph and variables.