Food Web Design Geree Morris April 24,2010 Bio 101 Instructor Natalie Garay

Introduction:
The rainforest biome is exceptional because of the quantity of life it holds. Partially all the worlds’ plants and animals inhabit there. Tree trunks are proven to hold at least forty-three species of ants in the rainforest. Each day, scientists are discovering additional foliage and animals in the temperate rainforest. Numerous people deem that the rainforests multiplicity is due to the closeness of its positioning to the equator. It is stated that the farther a location is from the equator, the fewer plant and animals exists.
The temperate rainforest generates the most solar energy in the world, because the equator is the nearest spot on the earth to the sun. Sun rays strike the equator straight on, not on an angle, because of the curve in the earth. The supplementary solar energy permits greater amounts of photosynthesis and growth in plants, permitting animals to have an uninterrupted stock of rations. The consistency in temperature is also a stimulus. Animals do not have to acclimatize to the changing seasons. These animals are provided the opportunity to become familiarized with their ecosystem in methods that are not possible in any other biome. Water also formulates variety (Elizabeth Anne Viau, 2000).

Food Web Design:
The Temperate Forest: (Elizabeth Anne Viau, 2000). List the organisms that may be found in your ecosystem, and indicate why they are suited for that environment:
Organisms found in the Temperate Rain Forest: Squirrels shrew, raccoons, deer, insects, salmon, elk, amphibians, weasels, lynx, wolves, and bears. These organisms are suited for this environment due to the seasonal variations. The temperatures are mild, therefore the organisms respond to the seasons in their growth and reproduction (Viau, 2000).
The Primary Producers: the primary producers are plants, shrubs, mosses, ferns, grass, flowers, firs, hemlock, cedar, spruce, vines, maple, and dogwood (Viau, 2000).
Primary Consumers: Are mostly diminutive animals such as insects, voles, mice, chipmunks, squirrels, seed eating birds, and salmon (Viau, 2000).
Secondary consumers: Foxes, beavers, blackbirds, weasels, frogs, and raccoons,
Tertiary Consumers: Lynx, bears, cougars, and wolves (Viau, 2000).
Decomposers: Decomposers are fungi, earthworms, termites, and bacteria (Viau, 2000).

• Name of plant or animal
• what it eats
• what eats it
• How it adapts to the ecosystem
Insects: they feed on water organisms and small debris found on the ground floor of the forest. They are eaten by salmon and birds (Elizabeth Anne Viau, 2000).
Squirrels: they feed on seeds, nuts, and other water organisms they are eaten by larger consumers like deer, elk, bears, and other larger consumers in the forest (Viau, 2000).
Deer: they eat grasses, fern, and small plants, and insects. They are eaten by bears, cougars, wolves, and lynx (Viau, 2000).
Mice: thrive off of insects, and plants they are eaten by larger consumers like wolves, deer, and foxes (Viau, 2000).
Salmon: feed on water life forms and insects that are positioned or produces in the mountain streams (Viau, 2000).
Frogs: eat mainly insects and plants and are eaten by foxes, weasels, raccoons, hawks, and owls (Viau, 2000).
Birds: Many birds feed on fruits and insects. Birds like seed eating birds feed on seeds and other debris on the ground floor like acorns from the trees. Larger birds like woodpeckers flourish off of insects, fruits. Birds like the hawk feed on grass, frogs, voles, and chipmunks (Viau, 2000). Turtles eat fish, fruit, flowers, and plants. They are eaten by hawks, raccoons, birds, owls, chipmunks, deer, wolves, and any of the meat eating animals in the forest (Viau, 2000).
Weasels: eat smaller animals; they are at home on the forest floor. They are eaten by larger consumers like bears, cougars, deer, and elks (Viau, 2000).
Raccoons: they survive off of smaller rodents, fish, fruit, and frogs. They are eaten by wolves, bears, cougars, lynx, deer, and elks (Viau, 2000).
Owls: eat voles and chipmunks; they are eaten by deer, cougars, bears, elk, and other larger consumers within their ecosystem (Viau, 2000).
Bears: they eat grass, leaves buds, flowers , mushrooms, berries, acorns, insects, salmon, deer, turtles, frog, and just about any of the primary and secondary consumers that are meat sources. They can be eaten by a pack of wolves or cougars. These large consumers will eat the smaller ones of their own organism to survive if necessary (Viau, 2000).
Cougars: they feed on deer, and elk, mice, squirrels, weasels, shrew, and other small rodents within the ecosystem (Viau, 2000).

Identify potential hazards that may affect your ecosystem’s stability, such as environmental pollution:
The trees that structure the temperate rainforest are enormous, and their significance as timber is in proportion to their size. With forests elsewhere previously cut, there is substantial demand to log in temperate rainforests. Timber cutting is the ideal threat to these forests. Timbering can be very complex, because of steep mountain slopes. If not done cautiously, soil erosion can be the end result. The silt, and the nutrients and pollutants it carries, are a threat to near shore marine organisms as well as freshwater organisms in the river itself. Human activities pose a risk to the rainforest. It takes temperate rainforests several hundred years to advance, and so fires pose a lasting danger. Another threat is the clearance of rainforests to use the land for farming, plantations, dams or mining. Rainforest timber is treasured for its exquisiteness and expediency. However, rainforest trees develop gradually so it is not economical to cultivate them in plantations for timber. Presently, Huon and King Billy pine cannot be sold to other countries (Rainforest Biome, 2002).

References

Campbell, Reece, & Simon (2007). Essential biology with physiology. [UOP Special Edition Series]. San Francisco: Pearson/Benjamin Cummings.
Rainforest Biome (2002). [Online], retrieved April 24, 2010 online@ www.kidcyber.com.au Elizabeth Anne Viau (2000). A Food Chain in the Temperate Rain Forest Biome. Retrieved April 24, 2010 online@ http://www.world-builders.org/lessons/less/biomes/rainforest/temp_rain/tempweb.html.

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