QUESTIONS FOR STUDENT EVALUATION
Unit IV

1. Several kinds of rare plants live in the Florida scrub. In order to preserve them, we need to understand what these plants need. Put a "T" beside the statements below that are true:

___To keep a rare plant from becoming extinct, we need to preserve some of the habitat that the plant lives in. (True)
___We need to know what insects pollinate the flowers of rare plants and know the life cycles of these insects. (True)
___We need to understand the life cycles of rare plants. (True)
___We need to make sure all the rare plants get watered every week. (False)


2. Plants that live in scrub are tough! List 3 adaptations that help plants conserve water.


Waxy coating on leaves
Tough, thick leaves
Leaves held upright to minimize sun exposure during the hottest part of the day
Fuzzy leaves
Tiny leaves


3. Place a "T" beside the following statements that are true.

___Plants that live in Florida scrub must be able to grow in soil with almost no nutrients. (True)
___Plants that live in Florida scrub have special adaptations to fire. (True)
___Plants cannot protect themselves from insects and animals that eat them. (False)


4. Saw palmetto and scrub palmetto are two plants that are well adapted to Florida scrub and live a long time. Put a "T" beside the following statements that are true:

___Palmettos play an important role in scrub by providing food and shelter for animals. (True)
___Palmettos burn easily and usually die after a fire. (False)
___Saw palmettos can live a very long time and often grow in large thickets. (True)
___Both saw and scrub palmettos produce flowers in the spring. (True)


5. List two ways scrub plants come back after fire.

Resprout, reseed (by seeds stored in the sand, from sand pine cones, or dispersed by animals)


6. Palmettos and animals interact in many ways.


1. List two animals that eat palmetto berries:
Black bears, raccoons, gray foxes, wild turkeys, gopher tortoises
2. List two animals that use palmetto thickets or clumps to hide and rest:
Florida panthers, deer, raccoons, bobcats, black bear, eastern towhee, insects, frogs, etc.
3. List one animal that uses parts of the palmetto when it build its nest:
Florida scrub-jays, wild turkeys, grasshopper sparrow


7. Write a food chain that starts with a palmetto as the producer:

Possible examples: Palmettos leaves-blue tortoise beetle-Florida scrub-jay-bacteria
Palmetto flower nectar-beetle-eastern towhee
Palmetto berries-raccoon-Florida panther-bacteria

8. Oak trees are very common in the scrub. Insects and other animals use oak trees as shelter. Circle the letter beside the correct answer:


1. Scrub oaks are evergreen and their leaves stay green all year.
2. Scrub oaks are wind pollinated.
3. Scrub oaks contain a chemical that protects them.
4. All of the above.



9. List two animals that eat oak leaves:

beetles, caterpillars, leaf miners, leaf hoppers, gall insects


10. Give two examples of how animals use oak trees:

Birds use branches and twigs for nests
Spiders use branches and leaves to support webs
Insects use the trunk and underside of leaves to hide from predators
11. Use the animals below to create a food web, using the oak tree as the producer.

oak tree	mold	gall insect
beetle	weevils	spider
bird	hawk




Many different relationships within the food webs are possible.

12. Why do you think an oak tree produces so many seeds (acorns)? What happens to the acorns?

Only a small percentage of acorns actually germinate so an oak tree needs to produce lots and lots of seeds. Many acorns get consumed by Florida mice, Florida scrub-jays, squirrels, deer, weevils, etc.

13. Write a short essay about what you observed while looking for leaves that were eaten by insects. What kind of leaf damage did you find? What kind of insects? What else did you notice?