Elk (Wapiti): Preferred Habitat
Elk
(Wapiti)
Preferred Habitat:
The most productive habitat for elk is aspen. Aspen areas can contain and support large numbers of elk. Some other preferred habitats are oakbrush, mountain shrub, conifer, spruce fir, and ponderosa pine. Oakbrush can provide coverage and food for the elk. Most of these habitats provide coverage,forage, and security for elk.
Place in the food web: Below is a picture of a food web of animals in Yellowstone National Park. The elk is a primary consumer in a food web, along with pronghorns, beavers, cutthroat trout, and deer mice. A primary consumer is an organism that gets its energy from a producer. Without any primary consumers in a food web the producer populations would be out of control, and the secondary
and tertiary consumers wouldn’t have a source of energy.
Consumer Type: Elk are herbivores, which means their diets consist of grasses, forbs, and shrubs. They tend to eat green grasses and forbs during the growing season but during winter they eat cured grasses and forbs. Also during the winter months they seem to eat more bark and woody plants. Their diets explain why they are found where they are, and in all different parts of Colorado. Elk can adapt very easily to places as long as they have some sort of grass or forb around. Elk are a ruminant animal just like a cow or sheep, so with a four chambered stomach they consume all grasses, plants, leaves, and bark. How it modifies the abiotic environment: Elk tend to rut in the ground while mating season to leave their smell in a certain place. This is an indirect way of affecting the abiotic environment. Sometimes in a forests, elk will move to the place where trees have been cut or it has been burned and they will eat the leftover roughage, this could cause something like overgrazing and ruin the soils value. Elk don’t really directly affect the abiotic environment, but there are a few ways they indirectly do.
(Wapiti)
Preferred Habitat:
The most productive habitat for elk is aspen. Aspen areas can contain and support large numbers of elk. Some other preferred habitats are oakbrush, mountain shrub, conifer, spruce fir, and ponderosa pine. Oakbrush can provide coverage and food for the elk. Most of these habitats provide coverage,forage, and security for elk.
Place in the food web: Below is a picture of a food web of animals in Yellowstone National Park. The elk is a primary consumer in a food web, along with pronghorns, beavers, cutthroat trout, and deer mice. A primary consumer is an organism that gets its energy from a producer. Without any primary consumers in a food web the producer populations would be out of control, and the secondary
and tertiary consumers wouldn’t have a source of energy.
Consumer Type: Elk are herbivores, which means their diets consist of grasses, forbs, and shrubs. They tend to eat green grasses and forbs during the growing season but during winter they eat cured grasses and forbs. Also during the winter months they seem to eat more bark and woody plants. Their diets explain why they are found where they are, and in all different parts of Colorado. Elk can adapt very easily to places as long as they have some sort of grass or forb around. Elk are a ruminant animal just like a cow or sheep, so with a four chambered stomach they consume all grasses, plants, leaves, and bark. How it modifies the abiotic environment: Elk tend to rut in the ground while mating season to leave their smell in a certain place. This is an indirect way of affecting the abiotic environment. Sometimes in a forests, elk will move to the place where trees have been cut or it has been burned and they will eat the leftover roughage, this could cause something like overgrazing and ruin the soils value. Elk don’t really directly affect the abiotic environment, but there are a few ways they indirectly do.