Food Web

Last week in class we simulated a food web. We made a huge list of animals that live on Presque Isle and then each chose one single animal to research what it ate. We could only include animals that were on our list of ones that we chose, so there were only about 20. If we would have included all of the animals our food web would have been huge. Then, we each got a notecard and wrote the name of our animal on it with what it ate (of the things on our smaller list). I had a bat. Then we attached strings to the notecard for each organism that the animal ate. I only had one because I found that the only thing that Michigan bats eat on our list was hornets. Then we went outside and connected all of the strings.

As you can see, our web was a big, tangled mess. I learned that food webs are not nice and neat like food chains. But food webs are more accurate because a certain animal eats more than one thing. Then, we took one animal out of the food web. 

We found out that if that actually happened, none of the other animals would be able to survive. If one animal was taken out of the community, nothing else would be able to survive because everything relies on another animal to survive. The food web would collapse. I thought this was really interesting and eye opening. I had never thought about it like that. Each animal on Presque plays an important role in the community.