Ecological Community Relationships- Ecological Competition - Territory Game

This game about intraspecific competition allows students to explore the need for territory and how intraspecific competition influences predators. Without space, or territory, a predator will not be able to obtain the resources it needs. The game is to be played before any notes or readings are given about competition or resource partitioning. Students are to use the “data” they obtained from the game to arrive at possible conclusions. Their conclusions and questions are then a basis for further learning.

This activity is available in print version and in a Google Doc for playing in a virtual setting.

Objectives:

To explain why territory is necessary for many predators, relating this information to the energy pyramid.

To explain territoriality as means for resource partitioning.

To describe intraspecific competition as seen amongst predators.

NGSS Alignment

DCI: “LS2.A: Interdependent Relationships in Ecosystems

Ecosystems have carrying capacities, which are limits to the numbers of organisms and populations they can support. These limits result from such factors as the availability of living and nonliving resources and from such challenges such as predation, competition, and disease. Organisms would have the capacity to produce populations of great size were it not for the fact that environments and resources are finite. This fundamental tension affects the abundance (number of individuals) of species in any given ecosystem. (HS-LS2-1),(HS-LS2-2)”

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