Cards, links and a desert web
A desert food web shows many links. Desert plants feed hares and rodents. Rodents feed snakes. Hares feed foxes and the bird of prey, and snakes feed the bird of prey too. In the card game, each card is one living thing and the lines show who eats whom. Take one card away and follow the lines. The animals that ate it lose a food. The animals it ate may increase for a while. Changes spread up and down the web. If the plants are removed, every animal is affected. If the snakes are removed, the effect is smaller, because the bird of prey also eats hares.
| Card removed | Effect |
|---|---|
| desert plants | hares and rodents lose their food, then the animals above them are affected |
| snake | rodents may increase; the bird of prey eats more hares |
| fox | hares may increase for a while, so they eat more desert plants |
Card game. Write each living thing in the desert web on its own card (six cards). Lay them out and draw lines or lay string between those that eat each other. Take one card away and list every living thing that is affected. Try three different cards and record in a table: card removed, who loses food, who may increase.