Chaparral Intro Deck
This is the default introduction to how to play Foodweb Kerplunk. This file covers:
Challenges
Varied. Weather, species wandering in and out, recreational use of the chaparral, area increasing and decreasing, etc.
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Chaparral Intro DeckThis is the default introduction to how to play Foodweb Kerplunk. This file covers:
ChallengesVaried. Weather, species wandering in and out, recreational use of the chaparral, area increasing and decreasing, etc.
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FoodwebA suburban plot of 100 hectares (250 acres, 1 sq km) of chaparral in fictional Ave Conora, California. It's probably under-developed because the steep slopes entail earthquake and mudslide risk. Of course, these problems can be overcome if the price is right, and slopes provide nice views. "Ave Conora" is Spanish for "songbird".Ave Conora has eight species of bird. Six species are seed eaters. The endangered California Gnatcatcher eats small bugs. The Roadrunner is a fair-sized predator, eating all bugs and lizards. All the birds nest on the ground, which makes life easier for their predators. Being surrounded by suburbia, there are a lot of domestic Cats. Since they don't have to survive off the land, their numbers are not controlled by their food supply in the foodweb. They don't bother to eat bugs, though they would if they needed to. Cats eat Lizards, Rodents, and Birds. The Cats' wild competitors also eat Lizards, Rodents, and Birds, plus Cicadas and Grasshoppers. This group (Cat, GreyFox, Skunk, Opossum, Raccoon) is known as mesopredators. The Coyote is the top predator, which eats the mesopredators. However, it has little control over the number of Cats, who are mostly protected by their owners. At the base of the foodweb, we have Space. Simply having space for wildlife to exist is a major challenge in suburban Southern California. The three types of plant life - Grass, Herbs, and Scrub - compete for Space. For simplicity, seeds are also treated as an equivalent of plants, though of course they are produced by the plants. Rodents and most of the birds depend on Seeds. The bug groups - Grasshopper, Cicada, and Otherbug - eat the plants directly. Lizards, Gnatcatcher, and Roadrunner depend primarily on the bugs. The mesopredators also eat the bugs. This foodweb structure is common to most temperate land ecosystems, swapping out particular species based on rainfall and other local conditions. For example, in cooler, wetter Connecticut, we'd have to add Tree, different insect species prevail, and Frogs replace Lizards. (Snakes are omitted here to cut complexity.) The bird species change, but hold similar roles. Fish are an important food for the big birds, also analogous to the chaparral's Lizards. Rodents and mesopredators are similar. Add Deer. A few Coyote have recently returned to Connecticut, to replace the long-lost wolves. But they cannot control the Deer. So in practice, humans are the top predator. Rangers deliberately cull the deer, with some help from recreational hunters. You can click on a species name on the histogram display, or its colored box on the foodweb display, to highlight the lines connecting to it. These lines show eater/eaten relationships.
Otherbug: A generic recording
of "Night Insects", probably not from a chaparral.
The sound can get louder or softer
or silent, depending on Otherbug population density.
The foreground sounds are
either on or off, depending on whether the species is still present.
Starting sequence:
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