Name Alex Rubin Date

Daniel 2015 AP BIOLOGY

FRQ HW: ECOLOGY

1.

1a. Identify two herbivores that compete for food in the food web above.

Herbivores: Mice and Crickets

1b. Even though both hawks and owls have two sources of food, explain why hawks would be less
likely to survive if a disease wiped out the mice.

Since snakes tend to be higher on the food chain than frogs, there will likely be less energy
transferred to hawks from snakes than to owls from frogs. Also snakes are predators and will
likely have a smaller population than the low level omnivorous frogs.

1c. Describe the role of the decomposers in this food web.

Decomposers consume anything and everything lost in energy transfers and any dead animals. They
take the nutrients put out by the animals and return them to the earth for the producers to absorb and
use.
 2. Base your answers to the questions below on the information included and your knowledge of
biology.

2a. Why are the accidentally introduced zebra mussles referred to as invasive species?

Because they are able to reproduce very fast and tend to dominate the local ecosystem. Their
introduction also inadvertently killed lots of the local organisms.

2b. On diagram below, complete the food chain by filling in the correct organisms from the passage.

Birds

Gobi

Zebra Mussels

2c. How has the bioaccumulation resulted in

the deaths of large numbers of birds even though the toxin level in the lake water is not high
enough to make them sick?
The concentration of the toxin increases as the microscopic organisms travel up the food chain.

2d. Describe one possible effect that the increased deaths of the birds could have on the rest of the
ecosystem.

The Gobi fish population will go unchecked and will likely increase out of control at such a rate that they
will eventually reproduce more than the zebra mussels. When this eventually happens the fish will
overeat the zebra mussels to extinction and without a food source the Gobi fish will also eventually die
off.