The Lion King

1. .Grass(producer)–> Antelope(secondary comsumer,herbivore)

Lion (tertiary comsumer, carnivore)

2. There are many animals. Here is the list of the carnivores in the movie: elephant, monkey, giraffe, fish, ostrich, hippotamus, rhino, mole, zebra, mouse, deer, grasshopper. Here is the list of the Herbivores in the movie: lion, alligator, South African anteater.

3. The 3 biotic factors are insects (bugs, worms), fishes, and lions. Another 3 abiotic factors are river, desert, and soil

4. The first biome is the dessert. That dessert can be the Sahara desert where the temperature in the desert changes dramatically every day. The temperature in the daytime can reach 45 C/113 F or higher in the summer, and dip to 0 C/32F or lower in the winter. The place also receives almost no precipitation, for example: rain. The water is vaporized even before they managed to reach the ground. Although there may be some oasis, where water from underground is kept in pools or puddles, these are usually located randomly and there are not many of them out there in the desert. An example of this biome is Sahara desert, one of the largest deserts that occupied 1/3 of Earth’s surfaces

The second biome is the floodplain. As of its names, floodplain refers to a flat or almost flat land that is positioned near to a river. There exists periodic or occasional flooding where a large area is cover by water but there is no strong current that is in the river. These floodplain are formed by meander and they are mainly made of unconsolidated sediments, the stream sand, gravel, loam, silt, and/or clay, and are often important aquifers There is water almost everywhere which makes it an ideal home to many herbivores as trees depend mainly on water and soil nutrient. Thus it attracts opportunistic predator such as bird, snakes, to move in and enrich the ecosystem there.

The third biome is savanna. It is a grassland ecosystem where trees does not stay closely to each other thus allow the Sun to reach the ground level, encouraging the growth of grass and many plants that are short and small. The scarcity of trees often is caused by the lack of water which is true because the rainfall is seasonal. Most of the rainfalls fall into one or several months of a season. In the summer the temperature ranges from 78 to 86 F (25 – 30 C). In a Savanna the temperature does not change a lot. When it does, it is very gradual and not drastic. Animals that inhabit savannahs are usually mammals, herbivores in exact, such as rhino, giraffes, elephants and carnivores such as lions, cheetahs, leopards….The ecosystem can be divertive but it all mainly depends on the amount of water that is available.

5. A) Biotic means relating to, produced by, or caused by living organisms.

b) Abiotic are non-living chemical and physical factors in the environment that can impact evolution. The components from living things that are no longer living can be considered part of the biotic or abiotic component. Generally, things that were once living are considered part of the biotic component, but body waste such as feces; urine (and carbon dioxide, oxygen, and water from respiration) are considered abiotic because those components were never living in an organism.

c) Nutrition Modality: The level of

d) Flora refers to all plant life occurring in an area or time period, especially the naturally occurring or indigenous plant life.

e) Fauna is all of the animal life of any particular region or time

f) Biological environment is the environment where life forms can exist. Sum total of environment where life forms exist is called the biosphere. In includes a portion of land, water, and air.

g) Biome are climatically and geographically defined areas of ecologically similar climatic conditions such as communities of plants, animals, and soil organisms,[1] and are often referred to as ecosystems.

h) Extinction is the end of an organism or group of taxa. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of that species (although the capacity to breed and recover may have been lost before this point).

I) Organic is pertaining to, derived from, like, of the nature of, an organ of the body.

j) Herbivore is an animal that is adapted to eat plants and not meat.

k) Omnivores are species that eat both plants and animals as their primary food source.

l) Carnivores meaning ‘meat eater’ is an animal that derives its energy and nutrient requirements from a diet consisting mainly or exclusively of vertebrate and/or invertebrate animal tissue, whether through predation or scavenging.

m) Consumer or a heterotrophy is an organism that uses organic carbon for growth by eating other heterotrophy or autotrophy and breaking down complex organic compounds that are produced by autotrophy that are consumed by them.

n) Producer or an autotrophy is an organism that produces complex organic compounds from simple inorganic molecules using energy from light (by photosynthesis) or inorganic chemical reactions.

Credits: Mainly Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/

6. The quote is directly related to both food web and the food chain. That is because every animal that are included in the food web/chain play their own role in the big picture. If just a single animal that is forcefully moved out the food chain or food web, depending on how what it’s position is in the food web/chain, the dangerous effects of losing a vital food source/predator are going to take place in an according level such that the whole ecosystem is turned over .It will be a massive chaotic situation where certain species overgrow and start to make certain food source even rarer. That is how delicate the balance is which rules in the food web/chain. It is a scene where the Pride Rock is taken over by the new King, ever since; the water ran short when a drought strikes. The situation was chaotic where there is no one standing up to do something about it, such that there is no grass left for the antelope. There are no longer food for the lions to hunt for and this, there is no food for the new King of our

7. Grass (producer)–> Antelope (secondary consumer, herbivore)

–> Lion (tertiary consumer, carnivore)

–>Decomposer (worms, decaying by bacterial processes)

The process of decomposing takes a long amount of time to be done. This is because the event takes place in molecular level thus requiring much, much more time to break nutrients, substances parts down rather than just simple as eating the whole pieces and digest them all. Firstly, the decomposer, specifically the detritivores, needs something that is dead to breed on. In order to acquire a dead body of an herbivore, carnivore.Iit is quite hard and takes long and hard process of fighting between them in order to get a result of the fight as a dead body. After that, the detritivores enter the dead body tissues and start to settle down their eggs inside the skin of the dead bodies and the mothers of the eggs die on a dead body. Once the eggs hatched, the hatchling will start to feed on the dead organs, tissues, the parts that are digestible or biologically degradable. That is how a certain organism plays a big role in recycling

8. a) There are several scenes where the hyenas show their behavior of scavenging such as the scenes of the elephant graveyard where the hyenas feed on the dead elephant and leave all the elephant bone in one place. Afterward, it piles up into big mountains and hills of bones, a graveyard of the elephant.

b) There is also a scene where the 3 hyenas try to chase down the young and helpless Simba right after his father death in the gorge. They got him deep inside the gorges, then into a cave and the chasing only stop when Simba managed to get through the thorn bush but not the hyenas .That is how the movie show the willingness to kill and consume young, sick or small animals of the hyenas (Simba)

c) Finally, a scene showing the willingness to kill larger weakened animals in a pack is in the movie as well. It is when Scar has just been rejected from the Pride Rock and kicked away by the grown-up Simba. He suffers quite a shock of being pushed down from height. Thus he is weakened. Unfortunately, the hyena packs got together and surround the fallen king. They were there for revenging on him. They did so because Scar promised the hyenas “they will never go hungry again” but nothing happed after he claimed the throne. They kill him and eat him up alive then.

9. Shensi is actually correct biologically when he said that. Most of the time, hyenas feast on dead meat, rotten stuff or something that has to be dead, decaying or biologically degrading. This is somewhat alike to detritivores which stands last in the food chain/web which recycle all the energy in the nutrients that stay inside the bodies of the dead

10. They recycle as much as they can the carbon-based nutrients in Simba. These carbon-based nutrients are stored and made through various ways. The energy from the food we consume from it just cannot really disappear. This explains why the energies are partially transferred through bodies and returned back to the nature to do other tasks such as encourage the growth of producers, trees, grass,..

11. (Scavenger) Vulture Hyenas (Scavenger)

Lions die

Weasel (secondary consumer) Lions (secondary and third consumer, biotic factor)

Grasshopper (primary consumer, biotic factor) Antelope (primary consumer, biotic factor)

Grass (producer, abiotic factor)

This is a food web partially representing the food web that exists in the Lion King movie. Firstly, there must be water, sun, nutritional soil for grass to grow. After a while, insects, such as grasshopper, begin to go over the grass land and begin to consume the grass. Not just the insects but herbivores (antelope) also came over and eat the grass. The insects are then hunted by weasel. Both of the weasel and antelope now share the same predator, the lions. When they die, the scavenger, vultures, hyenas, feast on the dead bodies of the lion. This part is usually omitted from the food web. The reason is to be discussed in the next question.

12. They can acquire nutrition from other carnivore’s bodies. Meaning that they have to kill that animals and then consume that bodies. They can also eat the dead stuff that is left behind after some carnivores finish their meals. That is two ways they can acquire nourishment from food…Decomposers are never to be included inside a food web because the decomposers provide recycled energy as nutrients for grass. The grass then gets consumed by herbivores and herbivores eaten by carnivores. If any of these animals dies, the decomposers will be going in anytime and decompose any of them to provide nutrients for grass. This in turn creates a merry-go-round food chain which will make the person who makes the food chain have a hard time to find a place for decomposers.

13. Timmons was trying to say that Simba was the only predator which does not or have little natural enemies. Simba do not have to worry too much of being hunted down by other species. It is true that there is a”Top” of the food chain. This is because there will be a certain specie which has superior features that prevent themselves from the danger of other species such as snake, lion ,elephant and even human. These features include physical abilities, defensive abilities and superior thinking abilities. For example, cheetah is able to run at 77 km/h, useful for escaping, hunting, combating,

14. The first way is the time when the drought strikes the Pride Rock. This event results in a heavy loss of natural plants. The second way is when the Scar decides to eat whatever they want from the nature; resulting in an unbalance ecosystem…The third way is that when the herds move away from the Pride Rock land, thus shutting off a vital food source for all lions, cheetahs and predators that inhabit the Pride Rock land.

15. The producer, being able to produce its own food from photosynthesis in the presence of water is mainly trees, plants. This ability makes them appealing to herbivore for they need food for energy to live their life and breed. These herbivores relied plants so much that if there is no plants life, they will not be able to survive and have to move to areas where plants are most abundant and sufficient for them.

16. Rafike was referring to the changing ecosystem. There will be a new, fresh ecosystem to replace the collapsing one. This includes the revival of the plants, the returning of the herds and the thriving of the lion packs. In the movie itself, near the end of the movie, there is a raging thunderstorm, lots of lightning and bolts striking across the skies. Suddenly, a thunder strike the devastating grass land and set up a wildfire burning down every single plants in the area. In real life, wildfires are actually very important for they enable the trees to get nutrients from burned logs, trees, branches at the same time clearing off certain species and let the sunlight to reach the lower ground. Back to the movie, after some time the fire take place, a heavy downpour put off the fire quickly. This set up is excellent for nature life for there are nutrients in the ground and water for life. That is how the current ecosystem is replaced but burning, recycled by the next generation and a new ecosystem is put up with the old herbivores, carnivores but whole new producer partially (wildfire cannot burn everything in its way.

18. Removing several factors away from the ecosystem will surely result in an unbalanced ecosystem. For example: the herbivores. The predators will then have no food for them and their hunger will go on and on as long as there are no herbivores to hunt. The longer the period goes, the larger the number of predators is going to decrease. Although they can feast on dead bodies, other carnivores and some omnivores, that will take a long period time for them to get accustomed to it and during that time period, the population of the infants will be affected in such a way that the infants survival rate will be lowered due to their weak and immature features.

The smaller the number of infants, the smaller the lion’s population for the older ones will die of starvation sooner or later. Similarly, other omnivores will suffer from those diseases that infected the plants they consume and their population will decrease as well but not as heavily as the lion population for the lion’s population is directly devastated.For the producer, they will over grow and diseases among plants will run rampant in order to prevent the sharp increase in Flora. The fact that the Flora is over grown is caused by the absence of herbivores to consume them and reduce the Flora species and individual plants.