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Native Bird Food Chains

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Native Bird Food Chains

Follow the feeding relationships listed in the questions: an arrow shows the direction energy moves, from food to eater. Use these relationships and the passage to answer the questions. In Aotearoa New Zealand, introduced mammals such as stoats and possums can affect native species.

A ngahere food web

Feeding relationships: kōwhai → caterpillar; kōwhai → wētā; kōwhai → tūī (nectar); caterpillar → tūī; wētā → tūī; tūī → stoat. Arrows point from food to the organism that eats it. More than one chain can be followed through these relationships.

1.In the web, kōwhai makes its own food using sunlight. What role does kōwhai have, and why is it the starting point for these food chains?

2.Which organism is a primary consumer in the chain kōwhai → caterpillar → tūī?

Kōwhai
The first animal in the chain after kōwhai
Tūī
Stoat

3.Use the feeding relationships listed above to give one food chain in which a tūī eats an animal, then a stoat eats the tūī.

4.The feeding relationships show that tūī can eat both nectar and small animals. What does this tell you about the tūī’s role in the food web?

When predator numbers change

Read this field note: “A predator-control team removes many stoats from a forest edge. The next season, more tūī nests survive. Caterpillar numbers also rise, and kōwhai leaves show more feeding damage. Other factors, such as weather and food availability, may also affect these populations.”

5.According to the field note, what happened to tūī nest survival after stoat numbers fell?

It increased
It decreased
It stayed exactly the same

6.Does the field note show that more surviving tūī caused the rise in caterpillar numbers? Explain your reasoning using the feeding relationships listed above.

7.Kōwhai leaves have more feeding damage. Which organism in the listed feeding relationships could be responsible, and what evidence supports your answer?

8.True or false: If an organism is removed from a food web, only the organisms that eat it can be affected. Explain your choice using one possible indirect effect from the feeding relationships listed above.

9.An introduced possum eats kōwhai leaves but is not included in the feeding relationships listed above. Describe one way possums could affect organisms in this web, and explain why this is a prediction rather than a certainty.

10.Choose one feeding relationship listed above and explain what evidence you would collect in the forest to check whether it really occurs.