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Course: Biodiversity | California Academy of Sciences > Unit 2
Lesson 1: Biodiversity and ecosystem function- Ecosystems and ecological networks
- Ecological interactions
- Ecological levels: from individuals to ecosystems
- Test your knowledge: ecosystem function
- Exploration questions: ecosystem function
- Activities: biodiversity and ecosystem function
- Glossary: biodiversity and ecosystem function
- Answers to the exploration questions: ecosystem function
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Activities: biodiversity and ecosystem function
Hint: the background information that will help you complete these activities is found in the video and the articles.
1. Calculating species richness.
Go outdoors, choose a particular area, such as your backyard or a nearby park, and document the number of different species you find in that area. Don’t worry about the microbes, the things too small too see; just focus on the plants, animals, and fungi that you can see. Use these data to calculate species richness of that outdoor space. Here’s a hint: add up the number of different types of species you find. You don’t have to know the name of each species, you can just say tree species 1 and tree species 2, for example. If you have a camera, iPad or smart phone, you can take a picture of each different species to help you identify them later. You should also keep track of how many individuals you find for each type of species, which will give you the population size for that species. But it is the number of species that determines species richness, not the number of individual organisms.
2. Documenting ecological interactions.
Go outside in your backyard, the school grounds, to a park, zoo or aquarium – some place where you will see a variety of living organisms. Observe two organisms that are interacting in some way, and draw or photograph the interaction and describe what you see. Explain what type of interaction you think is occurring and why. If you can identify the types of organisms you have observed, you can do some research online or in books to see if your explanation is likely correct.
Want to join the conversation?
- I'd like people to post the result of this experience on a webpage! "Go outdoors, choose a particular area, such as your backyard or a nearby park, and document the number of different species you find in that area." Who is ready to post their links for this science challenge?(9 votes)
- You are in for a big surprise (I know this is kind of late) but since Khan Academy has made a programming section with HTML they have been making contests. The two newest ones were about documenting your results on the first activity and then on the second activity. Here are the links to the two: https://www.khanacademy.org/s/contest-ecological-interactions/6240228079697920 https://www.khanacademy.org/cs/contest-so-many-species/4952749859012608(9 votes)
- About how many species would be in a typical species-rich area?(5 votes)
- Depends on how quickly the rate the species breeds. If it was slow, like about 6 or 5 animals breed, then have the baby animals later, I'd say it would be not so large of a species, but not too small, either. Maybe you could document the estimated times they breed about every month if you're doing the contest.(1 vote)
- what happened to social distancing?(3 votes)
- What do we do to complete this task?(3 votes)
- What is species richness measured in, like 25 animals? Or something else?(2 votes)
- if property is posted can you go on it just to see the wild life(2 votes)
- how do people find out what kind of economic structure they live in(2 votes)
- how do people find out what animals live in that economic structer(2 votes)
- Read on it and learn More things about the wild life(1 vote)