Preview - Modeling Ecosystems Computationally

Isle Royale Model


In earlier lessons, we tried to think about how a wolf or a moose might behave in the wild. We also thought about how the populations of wolves and moose might change on Isle Royale. You have used this to build a model ecosystem, but we don't know how good of a model it is yet. In this activity we will try to figure that out.

The model below is very similar to the model you have been working with in earlier lessons. The wolves and moose follow all of the same rules as before, except that now there are plants for the moose to eat. If the wolves or moose don't eat enough food, they will die. Look at how the size of the populations changes over time.

We have also added sliders to the model that allow you to change parts of the code without having to go back into the code tab.


Questions

Please answer the questions below.

Run the model and look at the graph.  What do the different parts of the graph represent?


What do you notice about how the number of wolves and the number of moose compare? For example, when one group is large, how big is the other one? When the size of one group changes, how does the other one change?


How do these patterns in the graph change when you change the inputs on different sliders?


Do you think the size of the wolf and moose populations on Isle Royale would actually increase and decrease like they do in this model? Why or why not?


Notes

These notes will appear on every page in this lesson so feel free to put anything here you'd like to keep track of.