AUTHOR
Suann Yang
Department of Biology, State University of New York Geneseo, Geneseo, NY 14454
THE ISSUE
Non-indigenous invasive species are considered one of the major threats to biodiversity. Generalist invasive predators have a direct effect on their ecological communities by consuming a wide variety of prey species. We can apply the concept of predator-prey interactions to understand the negative effects of generalist invasive predators. Impacts can include not only the reduction of a prey species' population size, but also the loss of biodiversity when the invasive predator population grows large enough to drive prey species locally extinct. Studying the impacts of invasive predator species can help to inform how conservation managers protect or respond to invasion in different habitats. In this figure set, students will generate graphs of data from an experiment to quantify predator functional responses and interpret these graphs.
FOUR DIMENSIONAL ECOLOGY EDUCATION (4DEE) FRAMEWORK
- Core Ecological Concepts:
- Organisms
- Resources and regulators
- Communities
- Predation
- Ecology Practices:
- Quantitative reasoning and computational thinking
- Data analysis and interpretation
- Designing and critiquing investigations
- Evaluating claims
- Argument from evidence
- Working collaboratively
- Human-Environment Interactions:
- How humans shape and manage resources/ecosystems/the environment
- Natural resource management (biological control agents, ecological risk assessments)
- Cross-cutting Themes:
- Systems
- Biogeography
- alien/invasive species
STUDENT-ACTIVE APPROACHES
Think-pair-share, graphing data, drawing diagrams
STUDENT ASSESSMENTS
Answering questions on a worksheet, sharing responses with the class
CLASS TIME
50 minutes
COURSE CONTEXT
This figure set is designed for a majors' introductory ecology course, within a unit on predator-prey interactions and after students have been introduced to Type I, II, and III functional responses. This Figure Set could be used in conjunction with Jean et al. (2023), which introduces Type I and Type II functional responses (https://tiee.esa.org/vol/v19/issues/figure_sets/jean/abstract.html).
DOWNLOADS
Description of Resource Files:
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This figure set would not have been possible without the support and inspiration from the leaders and participants of ESA's 2023 Transforming Ecology Education Faculty Mentoring Network, funded by the National Science Foundation (DBI 2120678). Special thanks to Linda Auker, Jeremy Hsu, and Rosny Jean for the conversation that shaped this figure set and feedback to improve it. Thanks also to Christopher Beck and an anonymous reviewer for their constructive comments.
CITATION
Suann Yang. October 2023. A graphing activity to investigate functional responses of lionfish. Teaching Issues and Experiments in Ecology, Vol. 19: Practice #11. https://tiee.esa.org/vol/v19/issues/figure_sets/yang/abstract.html