Hello all.
Your assignment this week (due by the time you come to class on Thursday, May 22nd) is to apply what you've learned about Ecology from one another to the movies we watched in class. I want you to put together about a one-page paper that discusses where you saw each of the 8 topics in either or both of the movies we watch in class. Then, you'll post the paper to the blog.
Remember to use your fake names. No anonymous comments, please!
Just in case you want to see them again, here are links to the movies:
Elk and Wolves
Grizzly Bears
Have fun. I am really looking forward to reading what you've written.
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15 comments:
Ecology was the main point of both the two movies. I thought it was shown very well. I learned a lot from them. It is amazing how things interact so much with their environment. Organisms rely on their environment for probably just about everything.
In the Grizzly Bear movie, I saw the Determining of the Population Size and the Changes in the Population Size. In Glacier National park Kate Kendall researched the Grizzly Bears. The Grizzly Bears lived almost all over North America before the Europeans came. The Bear’s population changed after the Europeans came. Now they are reduced to one percent south of Canada. At the University of Idaho they use special machines to determine the population size from bear hair. First they separate the DNA fragments by size and then call the individual sizes of each bear and that becomes basically the DNA finger print. That‘s how they identify each bear and then they use that information to find out the population and their movement across the researched area. Before the recent researches, it was though that there were 200 bears in the area. The new researches show that there are actually around 400 in the area.
In the Elk/Wolves movie, I saw Food Chains, Trophic Levels, Levels of Organization, Biotic Factors, Feeding/Energy Levels, the Cycles in Nature, and . In Yellow Stone National Park, Scott Creel (the Head of the Ecology department at Montana State University) and his crew checked up on the elk and wolves. In 1995, wolves moved into this park. Elk are Primary Consumers and the wolves are Tertiary Consumers. That means the wolves are above the elk in a food pyramid, which means death to the elk in the wolves mind. Scott Creel thinks this is taking an impact on the elk. Since the wolves have entered, the elk have been dying. The elk have become a major link in the wolf’s food chain. The wolves are carnivores unlike the elk that are herbivores. The elk are the energy givers to the wolves. The elk travel in small populations to guard and protect themselves from the wolves.
Ecology was shown throughout the two movies in lots of different places.
These movies really helped.
In the movie with the elk and wolves, I saw that the wolves were eating lots and lots of the elk. This was an example of Energy/Feeding levels, Trophic levels, and Food Chain/Web of how the wolves as tertiary consumers ate the elk as the primary consumers. Also, the deaths of the elk were an example of change in population. Also, another example of change in population during the movie was how the wolves emigrated back to the elk’s environment and how the elks were emigrating from their environment to another because they could stay where they were and die or emigrate and try to avoid the wolves. An example f determining the size of population in the movie was how one of the guys helping Scott built that device that went around the elk’s neck and they could track down where the elk had moved throughout a period of time. An example of levels of organization from the movie is how the wolf’s population gathered together with the elk’s population and together they formed a community and an ecosystem.
In the movie about the bears the woman Kate Kendall gave us a lot of information. First the bears range from Antarctica to North America. I think that this piece of information works with determining population size and changes in the population size. I think that it goes with those categories because they need to figure out were the bears are at and how many there are. Kate Kendall uses barbwire and prickly barbwire rapped around it then they wrap it around the trees. They do this so when a bear walks by the fur will come off onto the prickly things. After that the poor out this paste that has dead fish smashed up in it that has been sitting around for a month or two. And blood from an animal. They do that so that so the bears will go to the area were they have the barbwire. The reason they want the bears to go that way is so the bear’s fur will scrape off onto the barbwire. After a couple days Kate Kendall comes back and collects the bear fur off of the barbwire. After that she goes back to the lab and she figures out how old the bear is basically the DNA of the bear. I think that it is a really great invention. I think that the part with the fish is related to the trophies levels and food chain. I think that because when you put the fish down that is fish and bears eat fish. So it will attract the fish. Also I think that this has to do with food chains and energy levels. Because if the bears didn’t have the fish to eat they would need to find something else to put on the ground and the bands they would have one less thing they can eat. I liked this movie a lot and I think that it is cool that these people can do things like that.
Over the past few weeks we have been learning about many different parts of ecology. On Monday we watched two movies that pretty much summed up those topics.
The first topic is biotic and abiotic factors. Biotic and abiotic factors are the living and non-living things that make up an ecosystem. A tree is a living creature, so it would be a biotic factor. A rock is not living, so it would be an abiotic factor. We saw biotic factors in the movies because they were about animals (grizzly bears, elk & wolves). We also saw these animals interacting with non-living things/abiotic factors in their environment like water and air.
The second topic is determining population/change in population. These topics are pretty much self-explanatory. These were the main topics in both of the movies. In “The Most Ancient Game”, they were trying to determine the size of the elk population because they thought there might be a change because of the wolves. To determine the population size, they attached radio collars to the elk. In “Saving the Grizzly, one Hair at a Time”, they were trying to determine the size of the Grizzly population in glacier national park. To do this, they set barbed wire traps that caught the hairs of the bears. They then extracted the DNA from the hair.
The third topic is food chains/food webs. I am also going to talk about trophic levels and feeding levels/energy levels because these three areas are similar. These topics concern what eats what. We saw a lot of this in the movies, in particular “The Most Ancient Game”. This movie was all about how the wolves affect the elk. And the wolves in this case are secondary consumers because they eat the elk. The elk are primary consumers because they eat the grass. And the grass is the producers because they don’t eat anything. They get their energy from the sun.
The last topic is levels of organization. Levels of organization sort living things into levels. I really had to think to figure out where this topic came into the movies. Both of the movies are about animal (elk, grizzly & wolf) populations. Population is one of the levels of organization. In “The Most Ancient Game”, the elk and the wolf populations make up a community, another step in the levels of organization.
Science
Today in science we watched a movie on how wolves have been re-introduced to Yellowstone National Park, and how since then there has been a declining population of elk. Wolves are the main predator of the elk. The wolves do not only eat them but prevent them from doing daily rituals that they need. Elk regurgitate their food several times between bites. The problem is that the elk are always on the look out for the wolves. That means they regurgitate less, and less.
In the movie they showed how three researchers are collecting data on this problem. These people have many was of observing and collecting their data. Some ways they collect data is by using handmade collars to track the elk. The collars have tracking devices that show where the elk has been every two hours. They some, how put the collars on the elk in the fall, then when it turns to be spring the collar has a little explosive that drops the collar off without harming the elk or the collar. Then the researching team goes out with a collar tracker to find the collars. Once the collars are found they collect the data and know were the elk have traveled, and why. Another way of collecting their data was by taking poop samples. This shows what the elk have eaten, and how much they regurgitated. Once they know how much the elk have regurgitated they know it was due to the wolves’ presence, proving their hypothesis.
In the end the researches new that their hypothesis was correct and the elk were definitely affected by the wolves’ presence. This movie really proved that animals don’t necessarily have to be eaten by their predators to be in danger from them.
-> BZgirl
In the Grizzly Bears movie, it showed me a lot in Determining and Changes in Population Size. In Glacier National Park, Grizzly Bears used to roam all throughout North America. But, recent studies have shown that that is now reduced to one percent of southern Canada. To figure out the population size, you can use direct and indirect observations. Direct is when you count all the members to find out the population. Kate Kendall used the indirect method. She set up harmless barbed wire traps to catch Grizzly Bear DNA. Doing this she was able to find the amount of Grizzly Bear life. They identified with special machines the Grizzly Bear movement and determined the population. It was thought before Kendall’s research that there were about 200 Grizzly Bears in Glacier National Park, when in fact there are about 400.
The first movie, The Most Ancient Game, discussed the decrease of Elk in
Montana’s Yellow Stone National Park. In 1995, wolves were reintroduced into Yellow Stone National Park. Wolves, being the predator of an Elk, made the wolves a Tertiary Consumer, who is at the top in Trophic Levels. Being food, made the Elk Primary Consumer, who is just one step below Tertiary Consumers. This is a display of the Food Chain. Scott Creel and his research team, set up radio collars with a built in GPS system and attached them to Elks for several months. At a certain time all the collars fell off and Scott and his team used a tracker to track the collars. The collars’ GPS showed them where the Elks went every 2 hours. The Biotic Factors in this movie are the Elks and Wolves. The Abiotic Factors I would have to say is the food the Elks eat. When the Elks are eating, they chew it, swallow it and spit it up to chew it again. This helps them digest it well. Ever since the wolves have been back, Elks have to be more alert of their surroundings and are rushed while eating. They do not have the time to re-chew their food and this affects their digestion. The way I see it, the more Elks the Wolves eat, the more energy the Wolves will have but the less amount of Elks in that area. Eventually, the Elks will die out or not go where the Wolves are and the Wolves will not have much food.
Both of the movies that we watched were directly related to ecology and the topics we studied. The movies made it obvious that everything we learned actually has to do with real life. Here are some of the relations.
The first movie was based on the populations of the elk and wolves. Since the wolves came back into the ecosystems where they hadn’t been for at least 70 years, there has been a decline in the number of elk living in the same area. One of the reasons this is happening is because the wolves eat the elk. If there are more wolves and the same number of elk, the elk number won’t be able to feed the new wolves. This is an example of population changes. More wolves have immigrated to the part where the elk live which means an increase of wolves. When they eat the elk, there is a decrease of elk because they are being killed. Another reason for the decrease in elk population is because they emigrated somewhere where the wolves couldn’t find them as easily.
This movie about the elk and wolves also has to do with Food Chains, Food/ Energy Levels, and Trophic Levels. The wolves are at the top of the food chain in this case because they eat the elk. They would be the carnivorous 2° consumers. The elk would be herbivorous 1° consumer. The plants that the elk eat would be the producers, who would get energy from the sun. Now, when there was an increase of wolves, the elk had to move somewhere else with food that didn’t fit the elk’s diet as well as the food there was where the wolves were. This isn’t a traditional predator vs. prey situation. Traditionally, prey doesn’t try to avoid the predator, but stays in large numbers. In this situation, the elk stay in smaller numbers and try to avoid the wolves.
The second movie about the grizzly bears was about population size, and determining it. To help them do this, they used some Biotic and Abiotic factors to attract the bears. The scientists really wanted to get an accurate number of bears in Glacier national park. To do that, they set up traps to get samples of the bears’ hair to run DNA test on them. They had tried to count them in the past, but now that wanted something more accurate. This worked really well for them. They also realized that bears liked higher elevation better than lower elevation (Abiotic factors). It was found that bears were attracted to the smell of fish and cow blood (Biotic factors).
I learned a lot about how all of the ecologic topics were applied in real life, and it helped me put my thinking into real life.
-Orangesnailsarecool!
In the two movies that we watched in class I noticed that they both discuss the various ways to determine the population size. In The Most Ancient Game, elk were counted or tracked in Yellowstone National Park by collars that were hand made. In the collars there was a GPS that gave a signal of where that elk was every two hours. In Saving the Grizzly One Hair at a Time, they tracked or counted the Grizzlies in Glacier Park by collecting hair samples from barbed wire. These are examples of how you can determine population size.
The movie about the elk also spoke about changes in population size. In 1995, Wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone national park. This affected the elk population greatly. One way that the population was affected was that wolves were predators and eat the elk. Also elk spent more time awake or alert and this made them tired. To avoid the wolves the elk aren’t staying in big packs to scare them away instead they are hiding in the wooded areas, the places were they’re hard to spot. Doing this pushes them into a different habitat, so the population isn’t all dying out but it’s also decreasing from sight.
The food chain, levels of organization, feeding and energy levels all have to do with the movies that we saw in class. The wolves were eating the elk and the elk were eating grass. This is an example of food chains, feeding energy levels. The grass is producer, the elk is a primary consumer and the wolves are probably a secondary consumer or a tertiary consumer. For levels of organization, the elk that were living with the wolves and the other animals of Yellowstone would be a Community, as would the grizzly population and other bears in Glacier Park. And Yellowstone and Glacier Park would be considered an Ecosystem.
Those were the many ways our studies of Ecology related with The Most Ancient Game and Saving the Grizzly One Hair at a Time.
We have been studying ecology for a while now. We made a project on our topics and learned a lot about ecology. The movies that we watched all relate to ecology. When we were presenting our topics we learned about abiotic and biotic factors, determining population size, changes in population, and food chains and food webs. I thought that the movie was actually really interesting and I liked watching it a lot. It showed how people determined animals population size and if they are declining by using special devices.
We first watched a movie about elks and about wolves. The movie related to abiotic and biotic factors. Those factors make up an ecosystem. Biotic factors are living things like elks and abiotic are non-living things. In the movie there was living and non-living things. It was showing an ecosystem. Determining population sizes on elks was also in the movie we saw. Since the wolves’ population grew the elks population declined. In order to prove this people had put on collars to the elks and they had a thing like a G.P.S. system so they could track the elks later on. The next topic that was in the movie is food chains or food webs. So the wolves are the secondary consumers because they eat the elk. There are a couple of steps in the food chain. The steps are producer, primary consumer, secondary consumer, and tertiary consumers. Sometimes food chains can get messed up a lot. Food webs are like food chains but they have branches going off of each other and isn’t just one step after another. There were a lot of changes in population size. Since the wolves came back there population has been rising because they survive on elk. The elk's population is going down because they are dieing from the wolves.
I am going to write about the elk and the wolves video. It obviously shows example of biotic and abiotic factors. It shows this because there are obviously living factors such as elk and the wolves and abiotic factors such as what the elk eat like grass leaves, etc. In the levels of organization it says how living things react in their environment because the after the elks noticed that there were less of them they started to look out for the wolves most of the time. They also spent lest time resting. It shows a little bit of the trophic levels category because the wolves need the elk as an energy source, in order for them to live. The population size clearly went down since the wolves moved in, because they are eating all the elk causing the population of the elk to go way down. It shows feeding/ energy levels because it shows that the energy from the producer{elk} is given to the consumers{wolves}.
After watching the video, i noticed how many different this can be affected by just one thing, by just one thing being affected by one thing moving where they eat, sleep how long they rest ect.
when the Elks moved to a different location because they were scarred about being killed by the wolfs forces them to be more alert, not rest as much and not regurgitate there food and all of those small things lead to less Elk.
Because the Elks are scarred of being killed they moved to a different area with different food that is not as healthy for them.
The Elks also stayed in packs because they can't always be looking to see if their was predators near them so they have more eyes looking around.
When the wolfs came in 1955 and they started started killing the wolfs they entered into the food chain and messed it up.
Although what is happening to the Elks is not good but, i don't understand what these guys are trying to or how they think they can help the Elks because they can't just take them away because that would be very hard and the wolfs are a part of the food chain now.
While i was watching the video i did not get much out of it but what i did get out of it was that bear were all over North America and now they are not even close to that, the woman in the video was getting DNA from the bear by put bob wire around an area that had something that bears like in the middle and bear hair would get on the bob wire.
The Population size of bears have gone down by allot and by by getting DNA will help researchers try to find more bears.
the movie was great because it gave a lot of information like when the wolfs regerjetat there food it's bad for them and then they started migrating in the elh's home and started killing the elh's.
In the elk and wolves movie, I saw how a group of ecology people are feeling that there are less elk because of the return of the wolves. Scott Crell one of the ecologists was talking about how their are less elks because of the wolves and the elk behavior responds of the present of wolves.
I saw changes in population change I saw how the elks were dyeing because of the wolves that decreases the number of elks. They collect data by sampling elk poop I see what there eating and do they eat little we they are looking out for the wolves. Other thing a saw in the movie was mark and recapture, in the movie they put collars on the elks when they are sleeping or resting. One of Scott Crell ecologist that helps him makes a couple of radio collars for the elk to see if they move each day or where they are now. In the spring they put them on and in the fall it falls off by not hurting them at all. He follows the radio collars walking to where they are.
We watched a video on wolfs and elk in the same environment and how the wolves change the population of the elk and the elks actions.
The movie was related to Biotic and Abiotic factors because they talked about living things and how they relate to each other. They also talked about how the wolves had to do with where the elk where eating and living.
The movie was related to food chains, food webs, feeding levels, and energy levels. The movie was related because the wolf is higher on the food chain. It was related to energy levels because the wolf gets its energy from the elk to do every day things.
The movie was related to determining population size because they were figuring out the population of the elk from when the wolves first came back to the time they were doing the movie. They were noticing that the elk population was going down.
NOTTOM07
I learned a ton from the elk/wolf movies. In the movie about the elk, the wolves started eating the elk. This was an example of Energy/Feeding Levels, Food Chains/Webs, and Trophic levels because it showed hoe the tertiary consumers were eating the primary consumers. An example of Levels of Organization was when elks population and the wolf’s population gathered together to form a community and an ecosystem. Biotic and Abiotic factors took place in this movie because they are both biotic factors.
Determining population size also was a part of this movie because the humans determined how many elk were in Yellowstone Park because of all the wolves eating them. Change in population size in this movie is obvious because this is what it was basically based around. The population size changed for the elk when the wolves returned.
-whitestripe
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