MY LAST name Start with “P”

This week you are exploring the characteristics of our species and the role we play in our ecosystem. Two terms commonly used to describe an organism’s place in the environment is their “habitat” and their “niche.” A habitat is defined as an area inhabited by particular species. A niche is defined as the role (job), activities and resources used by an organism. For example, a polar bear’s habitat is the arctic whereas its niche is to swim, eat fish, walruses and seals, and to take care of polar bear cubs. Have you ever considered the characteristics of your habitat and niche or thought about what might happen if you were forced to move and occupy another habitat, and switch to another niche? This Assignment will give you the opportunity to compare and contrast your current habitat and niche with an assigned niche (described below).

Your essay should include:

• A description of your personal habitat and your assigned habitat highlighting the similarities and differences.
• A description of your personal niche and of your assigned niche highlighting the similarities and differences.
• Consider what characteristics would provide a survival advantage to you or to the individuals who currently occupy each niche and habitat.
• How have humans adapted to the two habitats and niches?
• What difficulties might you have living in the assigned niche and why?
• What types of cultural adaptations have evolved from living in your niche? Your assigned niche? What are the benefits and challenges of these cultural adaptations?
• Your discussion should consider any biological adaptations as well; things such as dealing with food spoilage, insect vector control, food and waterborne illnesses, etc.
• Consider the organism you have been assigned to study in your assigned niche. Would you classify it as a biotic or an abiotic component of the environment? Explain your reasoning by applying the characteristics of life covered in Chapter One.

Letter of last name: Assigned Niche

A-G

An Ecologist Studying Polar Bear Behavior in the Arctic

H-N

An Ecologist Studying Sloth Behavior in the Tropical Rainforest

O-T

An Ecologist Studying Cheetah Behavior in the Saharan Desert

U-Z

An Ecologist Studying Saimaa Ringed Seal Behavior in the Boreal Forest of Finland

Basic writing requirements:

Your essay should be in APA format and include a cover page, an introduction, the body of the essay addressing the different topics and questions described above, and a conclusion paragraph. Please remember to reference any statement of fact and to include a reference list at the end of the essay. The essay should be a minimum of 750 words in length not counting the cover page and reference list.

Turnitin Analysis

A special feature is available to help you with reviewing your Unit 2 Assignment for plagiarism. When you submit your Assignment to the Unit 2 Dropbox, your Assignment will automatically be analyzed by the plagiarism detection tool, Turnitin. Soon after you submit your Assignment, you will be able to view the Turnitin Originality Report. Originality Reports provide a summary of matching or highly similar text found in a submitted paper. To assist you, here is a link to a Turnitin review report tutorial: https://vimeo.com/29333644. When an Originality Report is available for viewing, an icon will appear in the report column of the Assignment Inbox. Originality Reports are only available in the Inbox. For this reason, you will need to download the report prior to the grading of the Unit 2 Assignment. To do this, click on the print icon at the bottom of the Originality Report. This will prepare a readable, PDF version of the Originality Report that you can save to your computer.

Submitting Your Assignment

Save your copy of the APA-formatted Assignment in a location and with a name that you will remember. Be sure to use the “Save As” option to include your first and last name in the title of the document. For example, your Assignment might be called Shawn_Edwards_Assignment2.doc