Question

7. The desert grassland is populated with plants such as cactus. The plants are the food source for ground squirrels and grasshoppers. Scorpions prey on grasshoppers and golden eagles prey on ground squirrels. Kit foxes prey on both the scorpions and ground squirrels, but scorpions are their preferred prey and therefore ground squirrels benefit when there are many scorpions around

a) Draw the predator and prey relationships that tie together cactus, grasshopper, scorpion, ground squirrel, golden eagle, and kit fox. Use the same plus and minus symbols used by your textbook to indicate beneficial (+) and antagonizing (-) relationships and solid lines (______) or dashed lines (------) to indicate direct or indirect interactions.

b). Identify the primary producer(s) and primary consumer(s) in the food web

c)You are an ecologist studying the desert grassland ecosystem. You hypothesize that the scorpions are a keystone species in this community. Describe an experiment you could conduct and the expected results (effects on other organisms) if indeed the scorpions are a keystone species.

Answer 1