Predator And Prey Lab Report

The purpose of this lab is to observe the relationship between predator and prey populations as well as to observe the effects of competition in regards to space/habitat and food supply. It is also to observe some of the major factors that contribute to population increases and decreases and to learn how to plot data to observe patterns.

I can determine the relationship between the predator and prey by analyzing the correlation between the two. I believe that the results will show that the predator and prey populations are dependant on each other. I predict that as the mouse pop. rises, the owl pop. will also rise because there is more food and can then reproduce. Then when the mouse pop. drops because of lack of space and increase in predators,
I was able to identify the relationship between the owl and mouse populations by analyzing the graph. It was somewhat like a mirror effect where when the mouse population increased, the owl population would also increased and when the mouse population decreased, the owl population would also decreased and then the cycle would repeat. The factors that most contributed to the population increases and decreases were immigration, death, and competition. When there were no mice or owls left, 4 mice or 1 owl would be immigrated in which increased populations. When the mouse population increased, it would be because the owl population was low and they had less competition for space so they could spread out to prevent the owls from catching 3+ mice and when it decreased it was because there were more owls and too much competition for space in the habitat. When the owl pop. increased it was because there was a lot of mice and not much competition for food and when it decreased it was because there was too much competition for food and not enough
My results would help them have a better understanding of how animal populations work and the different factors that come into play such as how population can decrease when death and emigration is greater than birth and immigration and how population can increase when death and emigration is less than birth and immigration. If there was a sudden increase or decrease of an animal in a certain area, the person investigating it would also find these results useful. These results could help them pinpoint the the reason for the sudden influx or drop in population by looking at the factors and graph. Reasons for such a sudden increase would be perhaps immigration and that their previous habitat was too crowded, didn’t have enough food and had too much competition. Reasons for a sudden decrease could be that the animals emigrated somewhere else, too much competition in that area, died of disease or that there were invasive species using up all the resources and they would know about these reasons if they were to look at our