Biological community lessons

Educators
1

I’m looking for activities and lessons that use iNaturalist to explore the concept of biological communities. This is for a 100 level undergrad environmental science class.

2

Maybe more an example than an activity, but if you use the map view to look at where species like Rhizophora, Ipomoea pes-caprae, and Uniola paniculata occur (maybe try Florida first), you’ll see they all trace the coastlines because they are obligate coastal species and need that habitat. They will also share that habitat with other species needing similar environments, thus forming the typical coastal community there.

3

I’ve outlined a lesson. It’s not quite complete but it’s a good start.

  • Students explore the biological community of their Ecoregion III on iNaturalist. They notice possible biological interactions among species.
  • Students select a bird from the Ecoregion’s species list. They read about the life history of that bird on All About Birds and create a slide of its interactions with vegetation and other animals. We do a gallery walk of slides and then we discuss the commonalities of how birds participate in the biological community through feeding, reproduction and camoflauge needs. (Note: my exemplar is the Red Tailed Hawk)
  • Students use this Connected Bio simulation of field mice in a beach and a field environment to explore how natural selection influences adaptation at the population level. The field mice are predated by RTHA (my exemplar bird) and the selective pressure of the hawks results in genetic color differention of the two populations.

I would like to add an element that explores species richness and abundance. Maybe go back to birds and have them compare the number of species with the number of individuals in each species?

Still mulling…

4

So, to explore species richness and evenness, I decided to look at two (decidedly biased) datasets: New York County (more commonly known as Manhattan) and the ecoregion we’ve been studying. I’ll filter the dataset to research grade bird observations made on June 20, 2026 and ask students to compare the species richness and evenness. If we are feeling ambitious we’ll run a Simpson’s Diversity Index using an online calculator, the results of from which will need to be taken with a large grain of salt due to the biases in the data.