Ecosystems - Patterns

Describe annual and daily patterns and how the environment impacts them.

Patterns

Activity

Torpor

Deep sleep that is easier to wake up from.

MYTH: Bears hibernate.

FACT: Bears go into torpor.

Bears can sleep for 100 days without eating, drinking, or passing waste. They can turn their urine into protein.

Torpor helps bears avoid danger!

Monarch Butterflies

• Have a special migration to the South in the fall.
• Travel in groups up to thousands.
• Journey about 2,500 miles.
• Requires 3-5 generations of butterflies.

Why do Monarch Butterflies migrate?

LESSON OVERVIEW

• describe population patterns that occur annually
• describe population patterns that occur daily
• evaluate how changes in the environment impact behavior patterns

Diurnal

Nocturnal

Hibernate

Migrate

Diurnal

Living things active during the daytime.

Sunflowers bloom during the day

Kimodo dragons

Bees

Raptor birds like hawks

Lions

Nocturnal

Living things active during the night time.

Owls

Bats

Queen of the night flower blooms at night to be pollinated

Frogs

Moths

Hibernation

Maintaining a state of inactivity during cold weather

Enters a deep sleep

Relies on stored fat

What is an advantage animals that hibernate have over animals that do not?

Heart rate and breathing are reduced and temperature stays regulated while stress is avoided.

By eating extra food before hibernation, animals can rely on their stored fat instead of using energy to find limited food in poor conditions.

Circadian Rhythm

Your circadian rhythm is mostly controlled by .

Migration

the movement from one place to a different place over long distances

3 reasons for this pattern

Reproduction

Temperature

Food

Humpback whales migrate from equator breeding grounds to feeding grounds at the poles.

Salmon migrate from ocean to rivers to lay eggs and reproduce.

Warblers spend winters in Central and South America and Summers in North America.

Desert locusts migrate when their ecosystem becomes overpopulated, in search of more food.

Desert locusts are herbivorous. Why are swarms like this a threat to humans and ecosystems?