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Mārā Kai Ecosystem Web

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Mārā Kai Ecosystem Web

A mārā kai is a food garden. Read the garden field notes and study the ecosystem web. Then solve the investigation questions. In the web, an arrow points from a food or resource to the living thing that uses it.

Field notes

In a community mārā kai, gardeners grow kūmara, lettuce and beans. Bees visit bean flowers and transfer pollen between them. Caterpillars eat some leaves, and a riroriro (grey warbler) eats caterpillars. Spiders catch small insects in their webs. Worms and fungi break down dead leaves into nutrients that plants can use. Gardeners add compost and leave some flowering plants growing. A dry spell has reduced the number of flowers this month.

Bean flowers → bees (nectar and pollen)

Bean plants and lettuce → caterpillars (leaves)

Caterpillars → riroriro (food)

Small insects → spiders (food)

Dead leaves → worms and fungi (food and material to break down)

Worms and fungi → soil nutrients → garden plants

Solve the garden investigation

Use evidence from the field notes and ecosystem web. For written explanations, connect causes and effects.

1.Which statement best describes this mārā kai ecosystem?

It includes only the vegetables that people grow.
It includes living things and non-living parts, such as soil and water, interacting in one place.
It is a list of animals that eat plants.
It is any place where a bee can find a flower.

2.In the web, what does the arrow from bean flowers to bees show? Explain what the bees get from the flowers.

3.Complete the chain using these words: riroriro, caterpillars, bean plants. Put them in order from food source to eater.

4.A gardener removes all bean flowers but leaves the bean plants and other vegetables growing. Predict one likely effect on bees and one possible later effect on bean production. Explain the connection.

5.True or false? Worms and fungi help plants use nutrients by breaking down dead leaves. Give one reason for your choice.

TrueFalse

6.Match each garden organism with its role.

Bee
Riroriro
Spider
Worm

Eats caterpillars
Helps break down dead leaves
Catches small insects
Pollinates flowers while visiting them

7.The dry spell has reduced the number of flowers. Name one non-living (abiotic) factor in this situation and describe one way it could affect a living thing in the web.

8.The gardener sees more caterpillars than usual. Predict what might happen to lettuce and to the riroriro population if this continues. Give a reason for each prediction.

9.Which plan is most likely to support biodiversity and the garden web?

Remove all flowering plants and insects.
Grow several kinds of plants, keep some flowers, and use compost.
Grow only one crop and remove every organism that visits.
Cover the soil so worms and fungi cannot reach fallen leaves.

10.Describe one practical action a gardener could take during a dry spell to care for this ecosystem. Explain how it could help at least two living things.

11.Challenge: Add two new organisms or resources to the web, then write two arrows that show how they could connect to existing parts. Use arrows from resource to user, and explain one connection.