7C Ecology Matters.

Creating new buildings for humans to live in or work in, destroys habitats.

Sometimes rare plants and animals are found near building sites.

We need places to live and work, but animals also need a place to live, mate and feed.

The rare organisms could be moved to other sites or new buildings adapted to allow them to stay!

What is a A place where any organism habitat? lives is called a habitat.

These places are all examples of habitats.

What are organisms?

What does a habitat provide? Wheres our nearest habitat?

What is an environment?

The habitat for this fox is the Arctic. We would describe the Arctic as cold, snowy, icy

or even windy and freezing. These conditions describe the environment.

Describe the following habitats as environments.

Learning Check!
1. Define the words habitat and environment. 2. Give an example of a habitat and describe the environment of that habitat. 3. Homework! Find out what the following words mean. Community, microhabitat, Learn as

adaptation and behaviour. spellings!

Learning Check! Answers!

1. 2.
3.

Habitat is where an organism lives. Teacher to check your response

Homework

Community refers to all the plants and animals

that live in a particular habitat. A microhabitat example. A woodlouse lives in the woods but may only be found under wet tree bark or stones. Behaviour describes what an animal does. E.g. fish swim, frogs hop or babies cry. Adaptations are things like, fish have gills and fins which helps them to live in water.

By the end of this bit you must

State some adaptations of plants and animals in different habitats. Explain why changes in habitats cause problems for organisms. Give reasons why plans for a development might need to be changed.

Polar bears dont eat penguins because (apart from the odd zoo) they have never met them. Polar bears mainly live in the Arctic region and penguins mostly live near the Antarctic. They are poles apart, literally.

This is Tiny. Why do they call him Tiny? Because hes my newt!

The Great Crested Newt is a very rare organism in the UK. In 2004 a company wanted to build over 500 houses near York. Had the project gone ahead, as it was planned, the Great Crested Newt may have been wiped out in that area.

The company changed their plans; they preserved the ponds needed by the newt and the houses were built in 2007.

Learning Check!
1. Name 2 adaptations of a cactus plant, a polar bear and a penguin. 2. Describe in science terms how global warming affects a polar bears life. 3. Explain why a company might have to adapt its original plans to help protect a species. Extension Task!

State how we humans can help to reduce the effects of global warming.

7Cc All Change

By the end of this bit you must Give examples of adaptations to daily and seasonal change. Give examples of animals that hibernate and state why they do. State the main differences between deciduous and evergreen trees.

Plants, for example, undergo many daily and seasonal changes. During the day they will give off scent and open their petals to attract insects. These are examples of daily change.

In Autumn trees will shed their leaves, as they struggle to photosynthesise in the Winter. This is a seasonal change.

The Great Crested Newt has adapted to feed at night (nocturnal feeder) to avoid predators. This is an example of daily change to survive.

This newt also hibernates when food is scarce. Hedgehogs, frogs and ladybirds also hibernate. This is seasonal change to help survive a habitat or environment.

The trees on the left are called evergreen trees, they dont lose their leaves in Winter. The trees on the right are deciduous trees, they do lose their leaves in Autumn/Winter.

Evergreen trees have tougher leaves that dont lose much water. Plus, they are usually found much further north where there is little light in shorter summers. Christmas trees are evergreens

Deciduous trees lose their leaves in Winter because there is not much light for photosynthesis; plus leaves lose water which cant be replaced if the ground is frozen.

Learning Check!
1. Name 2 daily adaptations in animals and 2 in plants. 2. Give an example of 1 hibernating organism and why it hibernates. 3. State why deciduous trees lose their leaves in Winter. 4. Give 2 reasons why evergreens dont need to lose their leaves in Winter. H/W.

Investigate how birds called swallows deal with harsh British winters.

7Cd Finding Food

By the end of this bit you must
Describe some ways in which predators and prey are adapted to finding food and feeding.

Eagle adaptations: Forward facing eyes to spot prey. Hooked beak to cut fish flesh. Huge, sharp talons (claws) to grip prey. It can fly very quietly. Amazing eyesight.

Some fish bury themselves to avoid predators.

Some fish inflate themselves and have sharp spines.

Some fish camouflage themselves by looking like their surroundings.

Learning Check!
1. Describe 3 adaptations of an eagle that helps it catch a fish. Say how each adaptation helps. 2. How are fish some adapted to stop themselves being hunted by predators? 3. What are herbivores, omnivores and carnivores? (Give 1 example of each)
Homework. What adaptations do we have that help avoid being hunted by a lion, for example?

Woodlice Habitat Investigation. Woodlice Info!

Dark and damp this way!

1. Woodlice like dark, damp places. 2. Woodlice have gills, like fish! 3. Woodlice are more related to crabs than insects. 4. Woodlice are decomposers.
You will investigate whether number 1

is true.

http://www.arkive.org/commonwoodlouse/oniscus-asellus/video-00.html

I love dark, damp places because I have gills, so I need to keep damp or I will die.

Resources: 3 pieces of stiff card Sellotape Scissors Cellophane Glue stick

water soil cotton wool sawdust

Prepare quarters as labelled.

Use moist soil, dead leaves and twigs for dark damp area. Spray before testing. Use cotton wool and sawdust in dry areas. Use lab lighting only or cool lamps. Microscope lamps will kill the woodlice in minutes. Place 15-20 woodlice in the centre hole in the box lid and record where they go every minute for 15 minutes. Make a graph of results.

Light and dry

Dark and dry Dark and damp

Light and damp

Year 7

AF3 Assessment

Add 15-20 woodlice through the hole in the top and start the stop clock.
L3/4 Each minute record the number of woodlice in each section in a table. L3/4 After 15 minutes record the number of woodlice in each section of the chamber in a table. Add your data to the class results and copy down the results for the whole class. L3/5 In what ways was it good to carry out this investigation as a group? L4/5 Draw graphs of all of the results, remembering to label the axes. L3/5 Use your results to say which condition woodlice like best and try to explain why this is. L6 Did you use your own results (primary data) or the class results (secondary data). Why? L6 Is the data testable by repeating it? L7 How might it have been manipulated to influence the conclusion? L7 If this experiment was to be repeated on a large scale in the woods, which scientists would need to be involved? What information or skills would they each contribute?

An organism that lives in or on another organism (its host) and benefits by deriving nutrients at the host's expense.
Scabies mite Commonly known as the human itch mite, the parasite is transferred by physical contact. The female mite lays her eggs on the skin of a human, causing inflammation.

ICT TASK.

Using the internet find out what problems these parasites might cause this unfortunate dog.
What precautions or treatments might a vet give to Fido?

Using a microscope Sir David Bruce (18551931) discovered trypanosomes in the blood of cows that had sleeping sickness. He injected blood from sick animals into healthy animals. The healthy animals got sleeping sickness. He thought that cows made the parasite in their blood.

1. For how long did Sir David live? 2. Why could scientists not look at trypanosomes in 1555? 3. Name a medical procedure in this text. 4. Identify a theory in the text. 5. Name a disease in the text. 6. State a process that might be thought unethical.

He later discovered that some humans got sleeping sickness but they had not been near any cows. He discovered that both cows and humans with sleeping sickness had been bitten by tsetse flies; which he deduced carried trypanosomes the parasites that caused sleeping sickness.

Cont..
A. Apart from having the disease, whats the link between humans and cows? B. Which organism transfers the parasite? C. What causes sleeping sickness? D. Trypanosomes and tsetse flies are different organisms. Explain how the fly could bite you but you dont get sleeping sickness.

7Ce Links and chains

By the end of this bit you must
Draw and explain food webs and chains Recall the words that describe organisms in a food web. For example, predator, producer or herbivore.

This is a very simple food chain. The Sun passes on energy for the grass to grow; the grass is eaten by the vole and the owl eats the vole. The arrows show the direction that energy travels through the food chain.

This is a food web. The grass, the vole and the owl are still there in a chain, but this web shows how they interact which other organisms. Draw 4 different food chains from this 1 food web. They will all begin with the producer . Explain the arrows.

Who is who in a food web?

Secondary consumers (Carnivores) Primary consumers (Herbivores) are eaten by and pass energy to are eaten by and pass energy to

Producers are eaten by and primary (Plants) pass energy to consumers Look at the food web and answer the following questions; 1. What is the difference between a primary carnivore and a secondary carnivore? 2. Who is the top predator in the food web? 3. What might happen to the population of rabbits if the owl population halved?

E N E R G Y

tertiary consumers secondary consumers

These are owl pellets. Owls cant digest most of what they eat; like bones, hair, teeth etc. Owls wrap up these parts and bring them back through their mouth. We could find out what the diet of the owl was by identifying the bones.

http://www.hometrainingtools.com/owlpellet-dissection-project/a/1244/
http://www.biologycorner.com/resources/ Owl_Pellet_Bone_Chart_grid.pdf

http://www.obdk.com/pdf/DissectionLab.pdf

Ecologists are It might seem obvious for the scientists who are farmer to kill the mice. This would often called in to surely mean his wheat crop would survey a habitat. A be safe from nibbling mice. farmer, for example, However, the field mice are in a might want to know food web or chain. Their demise what would happen to would mean other organisms his wheat crop if he would be affected organisms killed all the field mice. that might be very important to Field mice eat a lot of the overall ecosystem wheat in a season.