The Circle of Life

     For my environmental science class I sat in my front yard for about 20 minutes. During that time I kept track of all the biotic (living) and abiotic (non-living) things that surrounded me in my imaginary sphere. The obvious biotic things that I immediately noticed included the grass I sat on, the tree in front of me, the ants in the grass, and the birds above. The abiotic things that were equally as noticeable included the rock to the left of me and the one in front, the soil under the grass, the sun in the sky, the clouds above, the light breeze and the heat that was present. After a short period of time though, the biotic list increased.  I had wasps and bees fly in my area around me, I witnessed a lizard sunbathe on the rock to the left followed by a wild cat that tried to catch it. When I looked up in my tree I saw a squirrel sitting on a branch when it moved leaves fell to the ground. 

     The relationship between the grass and tree, and the sun is that the grass and tree are producers who photosynthesis thanks to the energy from the sun. The ants seemed to be living in the soil under the grass, and the birds and squirrel lived in the tree. The lizard enjoyed the heat from the rock which was warm because of the energy from the sun. The cat tried to eat the lizard, but had no success, if it had though it could easily be classified as a tertiary consumer because lizards eat insects, which would have made them a secondary consumer. The wasps and bees were the primary consumers, and the birds were also secondary consumers like the lizard.  There was predation going on; the predators were easily the cat, the birds, and the lizard, while the prey were the ants and the lizard. The lizard was both a prey and a predator because it would eat the insects and then the cat tried to eat it. Another biotic thing that was both a predator and prey was the black ants in the grass. They are a predator because they other insects, but also a prey because they could also be eaten.

     In the short period of time I spent in my front yard I realized that everything benefits from each other in some way or another. I am positive that I missed some things because there was a lot more going on than I had expected. 

The two pictures above were taken by me while in my front yard. I only had my phone for pictures, so it wasn't as easy to capture pictures of the other things around. Instead, I googled and found images of the biotic things I saw.

 The lizard that was on my rock was a blue-belly lizard that looked similar to the one in the picture above.

 The ants were black ants; also known as a real nuisance because they are everywhere in the summer time.

After reading up about wasps I learned that they are also a predator because they consume insects, and there are certain wasps known as spider wasps that eat spiders.