PAPER 1: SECTION B: LIVING WORLD
2. SMALL SCALE ECOSYSTEM: EPPING FOREST
Use the information, links and your exercise book – this is REVISIONMissing work? Ask your teacher or borrow a book.
Tables will need to be made bigger – check before you print.
Describe the location of your small scale ecosystem, Epping Forest, using the map below:
Go to the next page for the food web of your small scale ecosystem, Epping Forest.
Use the information in the table to complete the food web in the box below – remember to add arrows to show where the energy is going.
Hint: remember that producers always go at the bottom as they get their energy from the sun. one has been done for you to get you started.
Consumers What they consume:Insects, beetles, worms, caterpillars Mosses, grasses, herbs, ferns
Deciduous treesShrubs
Rabbit Mosses, grasses, herbs, fernsBadger Insects, beetles, worms, caterpillarsSmall birds Insects, beetles, worms, caterpillarsMouse Insects, beetles, worms, caterpillarsFox Rabbit
MouseOwl Mouse
Small birdsSparrow hawk Small birds
Epping forest food web:
SUN
Mosses, grasses, herbs, ferns
Read the information below and answer these questions:
What is a canopy? Top of the _____________ grown trees.Why is it so dark on the ground floor? The canopy acts as an ________________ and blocks out
the light.Why do bluebells flower in early spring? To get the _______________ before the canopy is fully
grown and blocks it out.
How is Epping Forest interdependent?
The plants, animals and soil in Epping Forest are all interdependent (they work together).
Join the adaptation with the correct explanation – use colours or a line.
How plants/animals/soils have adapted:
Explanation of the interdependence of plants/animals/soil: (how they depend on each other)
Deciduous trees lose their leaves in winter.
This means these plants maximise the sunlight available to them before the tree canopy blooms and blocks their light.
Trees grow broad green leaves in spring.
This is because winters are darker and cooler. Trees save energy because it is darker so photosynthesis does not take place (so leaves are not needed) and there is less transpiration without leaves so the tree saves water.
Lots of leaf litter in autumn when trees drop their leaves.
This means the leaves can maximise photosynthesis during the summer.
Bluebells bloom in early spring. This means the nutrients in the leaves are converted to humus in the soil by decomposers, ready to support the new season’s plant growth.
How are people and the Epping Forest ecosystem interdependent?
How people use Epping Forest How people affect Epping Forest:Coppicing (cutting trees to shoulder height) Why did we coppice trees? Look at the diagram
Visitors picking berries/flowers. How do we help spread seeds from vegetation?
How does changing one component in the ecosystem impact on the rest of the ecosystem?
Look at figure 5.12. It shows the impacts of the reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone National Park. Make a list of:a) the species whose numbers increased
b) the species whose numbers were reduced
Watch this clip and answer these questions:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysa5OBhXz-Q
How long had wolves been absent?
How did losing wolves from the ecosystem lead to the land being overgrazed (vegetation reduced to almost nothing)?How did adding wolves to the ecosystem change the behaviour of the deer? Hint: Where did the deer start to avoid?What happened to the height of trees?
What animals increased because there were more trees?Why did rivers become more fixed in their course?
What is nutrient cycling? Use Revision 1 Ecosystems if you cannot remember
Unscramble the words:
This diagram shows Epping Forest’s N R N T U I E T __________________________ cycle.
It is a P L A O I T R P O O R N ___________________ diagram which means you can easily see which stores and transfers are the biggest/smallest.
L = LEACHINGR = RUNOFFW = WEATHERING OF ROCKP = PRECIPITATIONMatch the following up to explain Epping Forest’s proportional nutrient cycle above:
Why is the biomass so large? Leaves are decomposed quickly into soil by the 700 species of fungiwhich are decomposers.
Why is the litter store quite small? Lots of heavy rainfall in a temperate deciduous forest like Epping Forest.
Why is the soil store so large? There are lots of tall trees and undergrowth (bracken, brambles)
Why is there lots of leaching here? Leaves quickly get rotted down in this fairly warm and wet climate and turned into humus (compost type layer at the top of the soil).Lots of leaves dropped in Autumn so lots of humus made.
How are Epping Forest’s living and non-living elements interdependent? Use the information above and your book annotate the diagram below.
How do animals and vegetation depend on each other?
How does vegetation adapt to the climate of a temperate deciduous forest?
How does climate affect the soil in a temperate deciduous forest?
How do soil and the vegetation help each other?
