Explore your local ecosystem and find examples of all of the interactions listed below. Document your observations with photographs. You will be sharing your pictures with a sentence description of the interaction. Even in urban habitats, you should be able to see these interactions (think creatively- house plants? pigeons?)! Life does not stop at city boundaries and organisms use these spaces as habitats. Many scientists study the unique ecological communities within urban areas with diverse research topics ranging from how urbanization affects organism distribution over space and time, how it shapes their basic biology and their species interactions, and how best to incorporate ecological needs into future city design. To view some examples for inspiration, check out this collection of the journal PLOS research articles focused on urban ecologyLinks to an external site..
Interactions you need to find:
Symbiosis (either mutualism or parasitism- specify which you are documenting)
Exploitation (either predation or herbivory- specify which you are documenting)
Competition (either interspecific or intraspecific- specify which you are documenting)
An indirect interaction
At the end of your exploration, draw a web connecting the organisms you found. On the lines connecting each organism, use a + or – symbol to demonstrate if the interaction is positive or negative for each organism. This web can either be digital or hand-drawn.
If you choose to create a digital diagram, you can use any program such as Google Slides to create your web. You could also consider using Diagrams.netLinks to an external site. as a tool to organize your web.
Each diagram should be accompanied by a written list of sentences describing each interaction.
If you do not incorporate your photographs into your web, include them at the end of your initial post.
My ecosystem has to be based in West Virginia.
