Dietary Habits of the Red Wolf:
Red Wolves generally consume white-tailed deer, raccoons, rabbits, rodents, and nutria (a type of small rodent). They have the ability to hunt for prey for a long period of time and can often travel 20 miles to search for food. Although all currently existing red wolves exist within the same habitat, at their peak population their diet depends upon the environment they are in ("Red wolf," n.d.).
R-strategist or K-Strategist?:
R-strategists are animals that often exist in unstable conditions, are generally smaller in size, and quickly mature, among other criteria. K-Strategists are animals that tend to have stable populations, are generally larger in size, and slowly mature, among other factors ("K and R reproductive strategies," n.d.).
Based on these criteria, red wolves are considered K-strategists as they generally exist around the carrying capacity (K) of their environment and are larger, slower-maturing creatures. As a result, it can be difficult to recover from a low population, due to the fact that K-strategists generally have a much weaker sex drive, resulting in lower reproduction rates. Additionally, K-strategists reproduce at later ages and have much smaller litters ("K and R reproductive strategies," n.d.)
Food Web
This food web represents the different prey and predators in an ecosystem, specifically the ecosystem where the red wolf is the apex predator. Different animals eat to stay alive and that's how the food chain continues. Disruptions to the food chain can cause issues such as overpopulation or hunger. For example, if vegetation started to run out, then the primary consumers would start to starve and the population would decrease. This would then lead the secondary consumers to starve due to lack of primary consumers to eat. That would create a chain leading up to the apex predator, the red wolf, and the red wolf does not have food to eat.
The trophic pyramid shows how energy is passed along the food chain. The red wolf lies on top of the food chain, where it is the apex predator. The energy present within the ecosystem can be referred to as biomass, since it is energy that comes from living creatures.
The pyramid is labeled as follows,
Tertiary Consumers (20 kcal)
2. Secondary Consumers (200 kcal)
3. Primary Consumers (2,000 kcal)
4. Producers (20,000 kcal)
An abiotic factor which has a significant impact on the energy flow within the ecosystem is the Sun. This is because this is the main source of energy present, but is not living. The Sun shapes its environment significantly by impacting the amount of temperature and light present within an ecosystem. Another abiotic factor is cloud cover and potential storms ("Abiotic factors," n.d.). These storms, which often come in the form of floods, are able to inundate the red wolf habitat, which is close to wetland regions, and would force migration out of their natural habitat. As a result, their population would be negatively impacted as they would find it difficult to adapt to a new area quickly.
When going up each trophic level energy is lost and population is decreased. A trophic level is a level within an organism that share the same function within the food chain.
There are more plants than wolves and therefore the population + energy goes down
The same applies to other organisms such as mice, deer, rabbit, and raccoon
The sun gives off energy to the plants at the beginning of the trophic pyramid