Writing your Lab Report

Title
Introduction
1. What is an owl pellet
2. How and why is it produced
3. What do you expect to find in an owl pellet and why?

Method
4. Describe/outline your dissection method

Findings:
5. List what you found in the owl pellet

Discussion of findings
6. Reconstruct the organism and take a picture
7. Use skull to identify the organism
8. Select the 3 largest bones
(i) Sketch them
(ii) Label/name them
9. Construct a food web using the owl as the top predator
10. Answer lab questions below

Review your procedure and findings.

11. Write a paragraph to review your work

Lab Questions
12. Describe one event in your food chain that would affect the owl population.
13. Study the owl prey chart attached in the modules 09/02. Use this information to
answer the question.
If an owl needs 120g of food per day
(i) How many Sorex would it need to capture?
(ii) How many Microtus ?
(iii) Assume an owl eats fifty 1g insects and one 100g rat. In terms of biomass, did
the insects or rat contribute the most to the owl’s diet?
(iv) Is quantity or quality of prey more important?