Name: cabbage biomass and cabbage-feeding caterpillars
Uploaded: 2019-01-31T09:26:49.000Z
Duration: 1 min 55 s
Channel: JoVE

K12 Standards

Louisiana Student Standards for Science

High School

Environmental Science

ecosystems-interactions-energy-and-dynamics

Ecosystems: Interactions, Energy And Dynamics

HS-LS2-4

Energy Dynamics

<ul><li><a href="#" data-time="8">Cabbage Pre-Weighing
</a></li><li><a href="#" data-time="60">Hatching <em>Pieris rapae</em> Eggs
</a></li></ul>

energy dynamics

<ol class="note-items"><li data-note-item="1" data-parent-collapse="">Cabbage Pre-Weighing
<button class="expand">Expand</button><ul class="lab-items"><li data-sub-note-item="1-1"><div class="lab-step">To obtain the percent biomass of a representative cabbage before the experiment, use a paper towel to wash and pat dry the inner leaves of a grocery store cabbage.
</div></li><li data-sub-note-item="1-2"><div class="lab-step">Place the cabbage into a pre-weighed Petri dish on a balance to determine the wet mass of the vegetable, and then transfer the cabbage and the dish into a 37 &#176;C incubator for 48 hours.
</div></li><li data-sub-note-item="1-3"><div class="lab-step">At the end of the incubation, weigh cabbage in the dish again to obtain the dry mass of the cabbage.
</div></li><li data-sub-note-item="1-4"><div class="lab-step">Then, calculate the percent biomass of the representative cabbage by dividing the final dry mass of the cabbage by the initial wet mass of the cabbage. After this, multiply the obtained value by 100.
</div></li></ul></li><li data-note-item="2" data-parent-collapse="">Hatching <em>Pieris rapae</em> Eggs
<button class="expand">Expand</button><ul class="lab-items"><li data-sub-note-item="2-1"><div class="lab-step">To hatch the <em>Pieris rapae</em> butterfly eggs, one week before the egg acquisition, sow radish seeds in pots containing fresh potting soil.
</div></li><li data-sub-note-item="2-2"><div class="lab-step">Place the pots in a sunny spot in the lab and water the soil daily, until it is just damp.
</div></li><li data-sub-note-item="2-3"><div class="lab-step">When the eggs arrive, place the egg strips egg-side down on different radish leaves. Note: Under indirect sunlight or indoor light, the eggs will hatch in around 48 - 72 hours.
</div></li><li data-sub-note-item="2-4"><div class="lab-step">When the caterpillars reach their fourth instar growth stage, transfer them onto a cabbage for three days, taking care to mist the caterpillars occasionally with water to prevent drying.
</div></li></ul></li></ol>

<div class="section-question"><h4 class="question-sect">What do we mean by trophic level?</h4><p>Each interaction in a food chain when energy is transferred from a consumed organism to a consumer organism is called a trophic level.
</p></div><div class="section-question"><h4 class="question-sect">What are primary producers and consumers?</h4><p>Primary producers are autotrophic organisms that generate organic materials. Primary consumers, which are organisms that cannot make their organic materials, consume primary producers. However, primary c...

Cabbage Pre-Weighing
ExpandTo obtain the percent biomass of a representative cabbage before the experiment, use a paper towel to wash and pat dry the ...

Education

JoVE Lab Manual

Biology

Ecology

Lab Manual Sub Articles

cabbage biomass and cabbage-feeding caterpillars

<p class="jove_content">Cabbage biomass and cabbage-feeding caterpillars are prepared for a study of plant mass and insect growth. A grocery store cabbage is used as a representative sample. The inner leaves are washed with a paper towel and patted dry before weighing.</p>

<p class="jove_content">To measure percent biomass, the cabbage is placed in a pre-weighed Petri dish on a balance to record its wet mass. The dish and cabbage are then moved to a 37 °C incubator for 48 hours. After incubation, the cabbage is weighed again in the dish to obtain the dry mass. The percent biomass is found by dividing the final dry mass by the initial wet mass and multiplying by 100.</p>

<p class="jove_content">Pieris rapae eggs are hatched for the next part of the study. One week before the eggs arrive, radish seeds are sown in pots with fresh potting soil. The pots are kept in a sunny spot in the lab, and the soil is watered daily until it is just damp. When the egg strips arrive, they are placed egg-side down on different radish leaves.</p>

<p class="jove_content">Under indirect sunlight or indoor light, the eggs hatch in about 48 to 72 hours. When the caterpillars reach their fourth instar, which is a later larval growth stage, they are transferred onto a cabbage for three days. The caterpillars are misted with water from time to time to help prevent drying.</p>

Cabbage Biomass and Cabbage-Feeding Caterpillars

cabbage-biomass-and-cabbage-feeding-caterpillars

Caterpillar Biomass Transfer Lab

Caterpillar biomass transfer is measured by comparing cabbage, caterpillars, and frass in a simple trophic system. In this lab, two groups of five caterpillars are kept in separate containers, and one group receives cabbage while the other group does not. The setup shows how much matter and energy move from food into animal biomass.<br /><br />First, enough cabbage leaves are weighed to cover the bottom of a plastic tub. Then, two batches of five caterpillars are collected from their cabbage habitat and...

Cabbage biomass and cabbage-feeding caterpillars are prepared for a study of plant mass and insect growth. A grocery store cabbage is used as a representative sample. The inner leaves are washed with a paper towel and patted dry before weighing.<br /><br />To measure percent biomass, the cabbage is placed in a pre-weighed Petri dish on a balance to record its wet mass. The dish and cabbage are then moved to a 37 °C incubator for 48 hours. After incubation, the cabbage is weighed again in the dish to...

lab manual sub articles

Measure cabbage biomass by wet and dry mass, then hatch Pieris rapae eggs and raise caterpillars on radish and cabbage in a simple lab setup.

Cabbage Biomass and Cabbage-Feeding Caterpillars | JoVE K12

HS-LS2-6

new-york-state-science-learning-standards

New York State Science Learning Standards

Life Science

matter-and-energy-in-organisms-and-ecosystems

Matter and Energy in Organisms and Ecosystems

HS-LS2-4.

Georgia Standards of Excellence

9-12

SEC4.

SEC4.c

SB5.b

<p>The first law of thermodynamics, energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed, can be demonstrated within a classic food web. Here light energy from the sun is first harnessed as radiant energy by plants and is then converted into chemical energy stored as complex carbohydrates. Some vegetation is eventually consumed by animals. In their process of breaking down the sugars, energy is either released as heat, stored in macromolecules as chemical energy reserves to be used later, or passed along to a predator. Each of these stages in the food chain is referred to as the trophic level. Plants are the producers. The squirrel would be the primary consumer, and the predatory fox would be the secondary consumer. The organic matter that is getting transferred from trophic&#160;level to the next is called the biomass - usually measured in energy units, calories, or kilocalories.</p>
<p>However, the transfer of biomass is not linear. After primary producers receive energy from the sun and make food, due to cellular respiration a small amount is transformed into unusable heat energy which is released along with carbon dioxide into the environment. The total light energy harnessed is called the gross primary productivity or GPP. If you subtract the energy lost to respiration from GPP the result is net primary productivity or NPP, which is the energy rate at which biomass is stored. Similarly, while primary consumers are harvesting chemical energy from plants, they also release a small amount of heat energy along with carbon dioxide during metabolism. And only a part of the consumed biomass is restored into their tissues. Finally, at the predator level, only a fraction of the original energy harnessed from the sun is available to use. Therefore, the biomass transferred from the producer to the primary consumer is not equal to the biomass transferred from the producer to the secondary consumer. These changes in biomass at each level of a food chain tell us about the productivity of a particular ecosystem as a whole.</p>
<p>In this laboratory you will investigate these principles of energy dynamics and productivity by measuring the transfer of biomass and energy from a producer, the cabbage, to a primary consumer, the cabbage worm.</p>

food chain energy flow and biomass

<p class="jove_content">Food chain energy flow shows how energy moves through ecosystems from one organism to the next. Energy cannot be created or destroyed, so it can only change form or be passed along to another organism. When a cow grazes on grass or an osprey eats fish, energy moves to the consumer. Each transfer is part of a trophic level, and these links help explain how ecosystems stay balanced.</p>

<p class="jove_content">Primary producers sit at the base of the food chain. They are autotrophs, or self-feeding organisms, because they make organic molecules from inorganic material. Examples include photosynthetic plants and chemosynthetic bacteria. These organisms capture energy from sunlight or from gases at hydrothermal vents, then store that energy in organic molecules. Consumers are heterotrophs, which means they cannot make their own organic material and must get it from other organisms.</p>

<p class="jove_content">The food chain continues with primary consumers, secondary consumers, and tertiary consumers. Primary consumers get energy from autotrophs. Secondary consumers feed on primary consumers, and tertiary consumers feed on secondary consumers. The amount of energy captured by primary producers sets the size of the community, because all later trophic levels depend on that stored energy.</p>

<p class="jove_content">Organic material stored in an organism is called biomass, and water is not included when biomass is measured. To find biomass, the water weight is subtracted from the total weight of the organism. Only a fraction of biomass usually moves to the next trophic level. As a result, the biomass pattern in a food chain forms a pyramid, with the largest amount at the bottom and less at the top. This loss happens because much of the energy is released as metabolic heat.</p>

<p class="jove_content">Respiration helps explain why less biomass reaches higher trophic levels. Respiration is an exothermic reaction that breaks down nutrients to capture energy in adenosine triphosphate, or ATP. ATP powers cell work, including the synthesis and transfer of structures and proteins. At the same time, respiration produces waste products and heat. Because of this, upper-level organisms end up with less biomass than the organisms they eat.</p>

<p class="jove_content">Ecosystem productivity is linked to changes in biomass. Productivity is the rate at which organisms gain biomass from received energy. Primary productivity refers to producers, while secondary productivity refers to other organisms. Gross primary productivity is the rate of photosynthesis or chemosynthesis. Net primary productivity is the energy stored as biomass after energy lost through metabolism and daily activity is removed. This helps show how different organisms allocate the biomass resources they receive.</p>

<p class="jove_content">Energy flow also helps explain human impacts on ecosystems. If primary producers are removed, consumers that depend on them must find another food source. If they cannot, secondary extinctions can follow. This matters because human-induced changes are already causing major shifts in ecosystems around the world, and understanding energy dynamics can help reduce harm and protect threatened food chains.</p>

<p class="jove_content">Human health can also be affected by energy flow through bioaccumulation and biomagnification of mercury in aquatic food chains. Bioaccumulation begins when organisms at the bottom of the food chain absorb mercury. Biomagnification happens when mercury moves to consumers and its concentration increases at each trophic level. Large fish higher in the food chain may then contain high mercury levels, which is why health professionals advise limiting consumption of certain fish species.</p>

<p class="jove_content">Not all ecosystem problems come from losing producers. Removing a keystone predator can also unbalance a system. In one experiment, ochre sea stars were removed from a rock, and the mussels they ate increased too much. That overgrowth used up resources and free space. The sea stars normally kept the mussel population in check and helped diversity thrive, showing how energy stored as biomass can shape the balance of an ecosystem.</p>

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HS-LS2-7

Cabbage Biomass and Cabbage-Feeding Caterpillars

Learning Objectives

What do we mean by trophic level?

What are primary producers and consumers?

Lab Prep

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