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Ecosystem Balance

Manage a food web — see how species interactions cascade

Food Web

Producers

🌿 Grass🌸 Flowers
→

Herbivores

🐇 Rabbits🦌 Deer
→

Carnivores

🦊 Foxes🐺 Wolves

Species (Time: 0)

🌿 Grass1000
🌸 Flowers500
🐇 Rabbits200
🦌 Deer100
🦊 Foxes50
🐺 Wolves30

Ecology Concepts

Remove a predator and watch prey populations explode. Remove producers and see the entire food chain collapse. This demonstrates trophic cascades and ecosystem interdependence.

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Ecosystem Balance: Trophic Cascades & Stability

The Ecosystem Balance simulation focuses specifically on how ecosystems maintain or lose stability when key species are added, removed, or their populations shift. Students experiment with trophic cascades — such as how wolf reintroduction can indirectly restore vegetation by controlling deer — and see how keystone species exert outsized effects on community structure. This distinct angle on ecological thinking helps students connect species interactions to real-world conservation decisions.

What you can do in this simulation

  • Remove a keystone predator and observe cascading overpopulation and vegetation loss
  • Reintroduce a top predator and track multi-level recovery across the food chain
  • Model invasive species impacts on native community balance and resource competition
  • Explore how nutrient cycling (nitrogen, phosphorus) shapes primary productivity
  • Examine feedback loops that return ecosystems to equilibrium or push them to a new state

Concepts covered

trophic cascade · keystone species · ecosystem stability · invasive species · ecological balance · conservation biology

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