Urban Biodiversity Game – Absent Version

Background Information

1. What can increase biodiversity?

More food resources, people leave homes due to a disaster, makes more habitat, low pollution, less competition, stable climate, isolation (evolution), more ecotones, stratification, more niches, more rain.

2. What can decrease biodiversity? Competition, less resources, people moving in, overpopulation, natural disaster, more pollution, change in temperature, inbreeding, invasive species, hunting, extinction,

Pre Lab Definitions

• Species Richness: A count of the number of different species in a given area.

• Species Abundance: The total number of individuals in an area.

• Species Evenness: How even the distribution of each species in a particular area is.

• Shannon-Weiner Index: Higher the index the more biodiverse. Ranges from 1.5 to 3 in real world environments. Accounts abundance, evenness, and richness of the species present.

Procedure – 1. Answer Round #1 Initial Community question.2. Determine the Species Richness and the Species

Abundance of your community of birds and plants.

3. The Shannon Index of the initial community is Birds = 1.33, Plants = 1.53

4. Event cards follow this slide. Read each event.5. Write what happened in the box under the event

on the data table.6. Record the changes for each species on your data

table.

Event #1 – Parking LotLoss of Habitat

• A new grocery store needs parking spaces, so a parking lot is built over an area of grasses and shrubs.

• Consequences: – Half of the Clethra, Winterberry, and

Chokeberry are cut down.– Half of the Juncos, Robins, and Song

Sparrows leave because of the loss of habitat.

Event #2 – Planting Trees Adding food and habitat

• A local elementary school celebrates Earth Day by planting 3 green ash trees in their schoolyard.

• Consequence: There are 3 new green ash trees in your community, which attract 4 new robins to nest there and eat the seeds of the trees.

Event #3 – Emerald Ash BorerInvasive Species

• The Emerald Ash Borer, a beetle whose larvae eat the inner bark of green ash trees, migrates to your neighborhood from the midwest.

• Consequence: Half of the green ash trees are injured and cut down before they can fall and cause damage. Four of the community’s robins, which were nesting in those ash trees, leave your community.

Event #4 Build a BirdboxAdd Habitat

• As a school science project, one of your classmates builds a bird box for the schoolyard.

• Consequence: A pair of black-capped chickadees move in to nest in the box.

Event #5 RunoffA Change in Chemical Composition

• One icy winter, the city puts salt on the road to make it safer to drive. The salt dissolves the icy water and washes into the soil.

• Consequences: Two of the summersweet clethra and two of the winterberry bushes in your community cannot tolerate the change in the soil quality and die. Half of the juncos, that have been living near the base of those shrubs, leave to find a new habitat.

Event #6 CatsIntroduced Species

• A family moves out of the neighborhood and into an apartment where animals are not allowed. Since they cannot take their two cats with them, they release them into the streets to live.

• Consequence: The cats must now hunt for food, and two sparrows, 1 junco, and half of the chickadees are killed.

Event #7 Global WarmingChange in Temperature

• As the temperature rises from global warming, organisms that usually live in warmer climates are able to move north. Because of this, the bark beetle moves into your community.

• Consequence: The bark beetles kill two of the pine trees in your community, causing half of the crows to leave for new nesting grounds.

After all 7 events

• Determine the Species Richness and abundance for plants and birds at the end. • The Shannon Index for the final

community is Birds = 1.31 , Plants = 1.42• Answer questions 1,2,3.• Put in your lab book as lab #9 when

complete.