Life in a pond

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Life in a pond

• Compiled by Mrs. Rogers
• 9-04

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Pond life busier than we can see!
cattails
mink
Newt
eggs
Canadian pondweed
backswimmer
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facts

• Ponds are fragile water systems.
• Ponds are shallow and can vary in size.
• Water temperatures vary by 20 degrees in a day.
• Ponds need a mix of minerals and oxygen in the
  water.
• Plants give off oxygen for fish and animals to
  breathe.
• Rotting plants make good hunting grounds for food
  and shelter.
• Ponds freeze in the winter.

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Producer of energy

• Algae and plants are the first rung in a food
  web.
• They have received their energy from the sun and
  converted through photosynthesis. Carbon dioxide
          water gt glucose         oxygen
• They are producers of energy.
• Organisms that eat them, gain energy to use
  within their body.

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Algae- microscopic food
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Lush green carpet

• Volvox looks like spiky, see-through green balls
  under a microscope. The young algae rattle around
  inside each globe. They gather energy from
  sunlight to make food.

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Is it plant or animal?
A plant! The bladderwort is a meat eater! It
dangles small traps, called bladders, from its
feathery leaves into the water. When pond insects
swim by, the bladderworts trap snaps open,
sucking in its prey.
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Surface tension
Surface tension happens when a liquid like water,
meets a gas, like air. It acts as an elastic skin
on the surface of the pond. It does not support
bigger animals, but allows light creatures to
walk on the surface without getting their feet
wet. Water striders will eat any wriggling animal
they can catch on the ponds surface.
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Spiders on water?
The swamp spider uses the ponds surface tension
to detect its prey. It sits with its forelegs
dangling on the water surface. When it detects
the wriggling of its prey, it lunges into the
water, grabs the prey with its jaws and drags it
back onto its perch to eat.
Swamp spider is 2 inches across!
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Creepers and crawlers

• One of the most useful bugs
• in any pond is the water
• flea, or daphnia, it is
• the size of a poppy seed.
• It uses its feelers as
• flippers to push itself
• through the water as it gobbles up
• algae and keeps the pond clean.
• Water fleas are crustaceans, which means that
  they belong to the same family as crabs.

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Creepers and crawlers

• From the tiny water flea to the great diving
  beetle many bugs feed on algae and plants.
• These organisms are a consumer of energy.

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Hard shells

• Snails eat algae. Some pond snails have to
  breathe at the surface traveling up plant stems
  for gulps of air.

The water snail has a tightly coiled shell. It
lives in slow rivers and ponds.
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Slimy vampires

• Leeches are slimy worms with a bad reputation.
  They live under rocks and in the mud at the
  bottom of the pond. Some eat smaller worms. Blood
  sucking leeches grow fat on a single meal and
  then take up to six months to digest it.

Bloodsuckers are attracted by splashing!
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Grubs

• In the spring, the pond is full of insect larvae.
  Mosquitoes and dragonflies spend their youth as
  larvae in ponds. Some grub are bright, red color
  others are see through.

Bloodworm is a midge larvae which makes its home
in the mud.
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• Mosquitoes lay eggs in water. The female is the
  hunter for your blood. Her sharp needle nose
  releases a chemical that stops your blood from
  clotting so that she may have a meal on you!
• Many predators feast on her.

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Whirligigs live on the surface of the pond and
have split vision. The top eye half looks for
threats above the water so it can dive and hide.
The bottom pair keep watch from below, if danger
approaches it can fly away. It spins around at
high speeds in search for food.
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Big eaters

• Frogs, fish, turtles and snakes are consumers in
  a pond. They keep pond life in balance so that
  there isnt too large of a population of one
  producer. There are predators on the edge of a
  pond that are bigger and consume them for energy.

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Outside the pond

• Consumers larger than the small pond life include
  Great Blue Herons, mink, moose, water shrew,
  raccoon. These are patient hunters that feed on
  fish, tadpoles, insect larvae and plants. They do
  not burrow in the mud and live in a pond during
  the winter.

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Maine Learning ResultsScience and
Technology Grades 3-4

• CLASSIFYING LIFE FORMS
• 1. Group the same organisms in different ways
  using different characteristics.
• 2. Describe the different living things within a
  given habitat.
• 4. Compare and contrast the life cycles,
  behavior, and structure of different organisms.
• B. ECOLOGY
• 1. Describe a food web and the relationships
  within a given ecosystem.
• 2. Explain the difference between producers
  (e.g., green plants), consumers (e.g., those that
  eat green plants), and decomposers (e.g.,
  bacteria that break down the "consumers" when
  they die), and identify examples of each.
• 3. Investigate the connection between major
  living and non-living components of a local
  ecosystem.
• J. INQUIRY AND PROBLEM SOLVING
• 1. Make accurate observations using appropriate
  tools and units of measure.
• 2. Conduct scientific investigations make
  observations, collect and analyze data, and do
  experiments.

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Bibliography

• A Freshwater Pond, Adam Hibbert Crabtree
  Publishing Co. 1968.