Complete Question:
I made the grass diseased. This caused all of the populations above it (rabbit, snake, and hawk) to rapidly decrease over the 12 month period
(a) A major disturbance that the ecosystem was able to recover completely from __________
(b) A major disturbance that caused the ecosystem to stabilize at a new equilibrium ____________
(c) A major disturbance that caused the ecosystem to completely collapse __________
ANSWER:
(a) reducing the hawks to nearly zero
(b) removing all of the hawks
(c) removing all the diseased.
Explanation:
(a) reducing the hawks to nearly zero will cause low depletion of the producer (plants) and this will allow the plant to grow (without visible depletion) over a period of time.
(b) for the ecosystem to stabilize at a new equilibrium, the tertiary consumer (hawks) will be totally removed from the ecosystem. Since there's no tertiary consumer to checkmate the density of other components of the food chain, it will make it form a balanced ecosystem.
(c) for ecosystem to collapse, it's important to note that the removal of the producer (plants) will be bring about the loss of the ecosystem. Since, their is no manufacturer of food, the primary consumer (rabbit) in the food chain will be starved and overtime the rabbits will be wiped out and this will caused the loss of secondary and tertiary consumer in the long run.
