Building a More Intricate Web
A Reexamination of Trophic Levels
Author(s)
Abstract
This case study follows two beginning undergraduate researchers on a quest for a summer research project related to food web ecology. While writing their research proposal, the students receive feedback indicating that they have neglected an entire group of organisms from their food web—parasites, which leads them to a scientific research paper discussing how these organisms have been overlooked by scientists studying food webs, the challenges involved with including parasites in food webs, and the contributions parasites ultimately make to food webs. An integrated activity in which students visualize the food web using images of organisms and answer questions about species interactions provides opportunities to examine key concepts such as omnivory, ontogenetic diet changes, trophic levels, complex life cycles, and taxonomic aggregation. This case study was originally written for an undergraduate general ecology course, but could easily be adapted to undergraduate general biology courses covering community ecology or specific courses in invertebrate zoology, parasitology, or disease ecology. The teaching notes also discuss how the included code for R statistical computing software can be used to extend the case study in a more quantitative direction if desired.
Objectives
- Analyze the types of relationships represented by food webs, including predator-prey interactions as well as those previously overlooked such as parasitism.
- Explore various research-based methodologies for examining species interactions and incorporating them into food web construction.
- Apply typical food web terminology (primary producer, primary consumer, secondary consumer, tertiary consumer, carnivore, herbivore, omnivore) to a partial food web based on empirical scientific research.
- Examine the role of complex life cycles, omnivory, and cannibalism in food webs.
Keywords
Food web; community ecology; parasite; aquatic ecology; species interactions; network modelsTopical Areas
N/AEducational Level
Undergraduate lower division, Undergraduate upper divisionFormat
PDFType / Methods
InterruptedLanguage
EnglishSubject Headings
Biology (General) | Ecology | Limnology | Zoology |
Date Posted
7/29/2018Teaching Notes
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Teaching notes are intended to help teachers select and adopt a case. They typically include a summary of the case, teaching objectives, information about the intended audience, details about how the case may be taught, and a list of references and resources.
Supplemental Materials
This case includes an optional extension for R statistical computing software that makes use of the following files (see teaching notes for further details).
Free_Community.zip
Total_Community.zip
Freeliving.csv
Parasite.csv
2-MissingTrophicLevel_V3.R
Answer Key
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