Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Fox and Rabbit Population Lab
Fox and Rabbit Population Lab
Fox and Rabbit Population Lab
Objectives:
In this exercise, you will:
Set up a model of predator and prey populations.
Observe changes in the population of both predator and prey.
Construct a graph showing results.
The Matsumura farm has not had people living on it since June of 1979. An
interstate highway was put through the middle of the farm to make room to
accommodate the increased traffic due to new developments. Now there are only
100 acres of land left on this farm. In April of 2008, two biologists wanted to find
out how the fox and rabbit populations were changing on the farm. They counted
rabbits by trapping them and releasing them. They counted foxes by looking for
them with binoculars because the foxes would not go near the traps. They
trapped and released 23 rabbits. The saw two foxes.
Procedure:
1. Read report about animals on the Matsumura Farm
2. Place 92 kidney beans (Rabbits) and 8 Black eyed peas (Foxes) in a brown
paper bag.
3. Shake bag.
4. Without looking pick 25 beans from bag (25% population sample).
5. Return all beans to the bag. Adjust population of foxes and rabbits by
directions indicated in (Table 1). You will add and subtract beans based on
(Table 1). You will conduct seven repetitions of the experiment.
6. Use word to make a data table to identify number of animals counted (Table
2).
7. Using excel graph the population changes of both fox and rabbit
populations. Use different colors to graph each animal. Print Graph
8. Use word to create a table displaying sample size (n), standard deviation
(SD) and mean.
October 2009 Add 15 rabbits. Food was Add 2 foxes. Foxes had larger
plentiful. More rabbits litter numbers that usual.
immigrated to the area.
April 2010 Remove 8 rabbit. Many rabbits Remove 3 foxes. Food levels
died from disease. where low so some foxes
emigrated.
October 2010 Add 12 brown beans. Spring Remove 4 foxes because of the
came early. Rabbits could breed rabbit disease few foxes could
earlier. survive.
Analysis Questions
Figure 1: The graph above shows the average number of foxes and rabbits sampled over a seven year
period on the Matsumura Farm.