Assignment: Ecosystem simulator
Assignment: Ecosystem simulator
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Read the Overview and launch this . Familiarize yourself with the simulator interface. Notice that you can control which species are present in your environment initially and what the diets of each species are. The types of species possible in the program are Plants (A,B,C), Herbivores (A,B,C), Omnivores (A,B) and one top Predator. You can control the diet of each by indicating what they feed on. By setting up different starting configurations you can investigate the evolution of this simulated ecological system.
A. In a couple of sentences describe what happens when you start with only two (A&B) and then all three plant species present.
When only A & B plant species are there and we run the stimulator, the population of Plant a increases and becomes maximum and that of plant B decreases to 0. As the time passes by, species of A decreases and that of B increases such that in long run we have equal distribution of Species A & B.
When we run the simulator with all the three plant species, The consequence of Plant A & B is same but there is no plant of type C.
In this case there are only producers. They harness the sun energy and grow. The favourable ones boom and the others are overshadowed in the process.
B. Describe how many herbivores and omnivores you added (and what they eat) in order to create an ecosystem in which all three plant species can coexist. (if you cannot accomplish the survival of Plant C describe your best configuration. Describe your ecologies by identifying the species present and their diet, for instance:
Omnivore A eats Herbivore A, Herbivore A eats plant A and plant B, Herbivore B eats plant A, All plants present.
All the three varieties of plant A, B & C co-exists when we add Herbivore A, B, & C
Herbivore A eats Plant A & C, Herbivore B eats Plant A & B and Herbivore C Eats Plant B & C.
Omnivore A eats Herbivore A & B and Omnivore B eats Herbivore B & C
Top Predator eats both Omnivore A & B. In this ecosystem all the varieties have a co-existence.
C. If you can accomplish part B, see if you can get all of the species to coexist. (limit your time on this entire experiment to 90 minutes)
D. If we assume that this simulation is a reasonable oversimplification of a typical ecosystems food web what does it tell us about biodiversity and ecology- are they robust or fragile? In general is an ecosystem’s biodiversity preserved as it responds to change?
Virtual Lab 6: Evolution: Sex and the Single Guppy
This simulation follows a set of real life experiments in evolution and natural selection. Familiarize yourself with the interface, guppies, guppy predators, and the experiment. Use an “even mix” of the different guppy color types to start. Run three experiments one with each of the combination of predators. Each experiment should run for five or more generations. Type your solutions in bold face text.
• State the percentage that each color type makes up in your guppy population both before and after you have let five generations pass. With each experiment state a conclusion that is consistent with your observation.
1. Rivulus only
131 guppies
2. Rivulus and Acara
3. Rivulus, Acara and Cichlids.
• What two selection pressures are operative?
