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How to Make
Your Food Pyramid
Step One: Decide What
Kind of a Biome You are Working With
Your group should already have decided this when designing
plants and animals.
I will do the Tundra Biome as an example.
Step Two: Determine
KiloCalories per Square Meter per Year
Find the table at http://www.geog.pic.bc.ca/conted/onlinecourses/geog:111/7l.html,
an online Geology course created by Dr,
Michael Pidwirny at Okanagan College, British Columbia,
Canada. This table will give you the number of Kilocalories of
food for herbivores produced by the plants growing on one square
meter over a year. Find your biome and the number of Kilocalories
that will be produced there.
We will go with these standard base numbers.
Tundra Biome produces 600 Kilocalories per square meter
per year.
Herbivores will produce a maximum of 7% of food for the
predators.
If the predators are eaten, only 1% of the Kilocalories
feeds the next level.
To find out more about your biome --
Step Three: List Your
Animals:
I will use the lemming as the herbivore
and two predators: the Snowy Owl and the Arctic Fox.
List what you know about each animal.
Use an average weight for each animal.
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Lemmings
weigh 1-2 oz in summer (30-50 grams)
2-4 oz in winter (50-112 grams)
eats grass and mosses
20 day gestation
3 litters of 6-9 in summer
mouse this weight would eat 15 - 50 K a day
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Snowy Owl
23 inches tall
2-3 pounds
Wing span = 60 inches
8-10 eggs
9 baby owls eat 1500 lemmings(150 for one owlet)
adult eats a dozen lemmings a day
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Arctic Fox
Weight 5 to 10 pounds
52 days gestation litter of 3-11 record is 19
wean at 5-9 weeks very high juvenile mortality
ninety days of raising fox litter -- 18,000 lemmings -- 200
lemmings a day
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Some of this is interesting
but not useful. Condense your information.
| Animal |
Weight in Pounds /Ounces |
Weight in Grams (Ounces * 28) |
Kilocalories needed per Day |
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| Lemming |
1.4 ounces |
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40 |
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| Snowy Owl |
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| Arctic Fox |
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