Stephanie Cruz-Guzman
ENV 1010
Professor Kipp
February 22, 2024
Wolf and Moose Populations
Define the following terms:
Apex predator: a top-level predator with no natural predator of their own; resides at the top of a
food chain
Browser: an organism that eats the leaves, twigs, and shoots of trees or shrubs
Biotic vs abiotic factors: Biotic factors are living things with an ecosystem like plants, animals,
and bacteria. Abiotic factors are nonliving components like water, soil, and sunlight.
Habitat: the home or environment of a plant, animal, or other organism
Keystone species: a species that has a disproportionately large effect on its natural environment
compared to its relative abundance. If it were to be removed then the ecosystem would change
drastically.
Trophic cascade: significant interactions that can control entire ecosystems. It occurs when the
impact of a predator on its prey affects one or more feeding or trophic levels. It must occur
across a minimum of three trophic levels.
Boom and bust cycling of predator prey interactions: Boom and bust cycles is when the
population grows rapidly but is followed by a bust when the population falls back to its minimal
level. The predator populations increase and decrease as the numbers of the prey population
change.
Interspecific interactions (vs IntrAspecific): Interspecific interactions are interactions between
two species. Intraspecific interactions are interactions between two individuals of the same
species.
Answer the following questions:
Why were wolves eliminated from Yellowstone and the surrounding region? When?
Wolves were eliminated from Yellowstone and the surrounding region because they were seen as
a risk to people and to livestock as states in the “Wolves of Yellowstone” video from PBS. Since
they were seen as a risk, they were exterminated in the early 1920s.
Why is Yellowstone significant?
Yellowstone is significant because it is the nation’s first national park. It not only has an entire
ecosystem, but it also helps the economy. As stated in “Wolves of Yellowstone”, it helped bring
in 30 million dollars into the economy because of the amount of visitors to Yellowstone which
brings money for jobs and livelihoods. Since the wolf’s reintroductions, it brought back clean
drinking water from the Yellowstone river to the 106,000 residents of Billings, Montana.
Discuss impacts on abiotic and biotic facts when wolves were eliminated from the ecosystem
(6-8 sentences).
When wolves were eliminated from the ecosystem, elk's main predator was gone so their
population more than doubled. Elks are grazers and they overgrazed the entire park which in turn
upset the natural balance of the ecosystem. Mice and rabbits were also impacted from the
elimination of wolves because since there were no plants for them to hide from their predators
because of the elk, their population numbers fell dramatically. The elk also ate the berry supply
which meant the grizzly bears suffered. The grizzly bears need the berry supply so they can build
up fat for hibernation. The elks also affected the riverbanks as well and since their predators were
gone, their hooves eroded the riverbanks and clouded it with soil. Without clean water, the
beavers weren’t able to build their dams and without the dams then the fish, amphibians, and
otters also suffered.
Describe why a double-y axis graph is the best way to plot predators and prey.
A double-y axis graph is the best way to plot predators and prey because it’s able to show the
variations of the data against the other variable much compared to if it was just a singular y-axis.
Before the secondary y-axis, you couldn’t see a difference in the different numbers in the dataset
since they were just along the same line.
Can you tell from the graph when the wolves were reintroduced?
I can tell from the graph when the wolves were reintroduced because you can see where the wolf
population was low in 1970 but a few years after in 1973 and where there is an increase. You can
also see on the graph that after the reintroduction it even reached a high number of 40 wolves in
1978.
What is the purpose of an EIS (environmental impact statement)?
The purpose of an EIS is to ensure that policies and goals are delivered in the proposed project
and are incorporated in the actions and programs of the federal government. It also allows people
to weigh in their thoughts/opinions and are able to see who is interested in the proposed projects,
as shown in the “Department of Interior news release” from the Fish and Wildlife Service in
1994.
What is your dependent vs independent axis on your predator-prey graph? WHY?
The dependent axis on the predator-prey graph is the double-y axis which represents the moose
and wolf population. They both depend on each other looking at both of their population
numbers where you can see the increase of moose when there weren’t many wolves compared to
the decrease in moose when the wolves were increasing. The independent axis is the x-axis
which represents the time. It is the only variable that doesn’t change or depend on the other two
variables.
Cited Work
EARTH: A New Wild. (2020, December 14). Wolves of yellowstone: Earth a new wild.
PBS LearningMedia.
https://cptv.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/a58e3ca2-52ab-45f5-87ac-26ee0d681146/wolv
es-of-yellowstone-earth-a-new-wild/
