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Time: 10 hours
Level: Introductory
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 Introduction Resource- The plant predators, or herbivores, are a varied group, but they share certain characteristics. Many of them are large; among the smallest is the chevrotain (or mouse-deer) at about two kilograms weight,...
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- 1 The herbivores Resource
- As you work through this unit you will come across boxes, like this one, which give you advice about the study skills that you will be developing as you progress through the unit. To avoid breaking up...
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| | 2 The herbivore lifestyle – living on leaves
- 2 The herbivore lifestyle – living on leaves Resource
- Leaves are a much less nutritious food than most kinds of animal material, so large herbivores have to eat large quantities of plants and they have special ways to digest their food. As author David Attenborough...
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- 3 Herbivore teeth Resource
- Tables are a useful way of recording key information. The headings for Tables 1 and 2 have been prepared for you, and you can copy and complete the tables in your notebook. If you need to find any of this...
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| | 4 Digesting plant material
- 4.1 A brief digression about digestion Resource
- There are many new scientific terms introduced in this unit. Are you making your own lists of them? If you were to encounter these terms in a fresh context (perhaps on a website, or during your own reading...
- 4.2 Digesting cellulose Resource
- Figure 3 in this section contains a lot of information and many terms that are probably new to you. Set aside the detail for the moment, read the caption and try to get an overall impression. You should...
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- 5.1 Ruminants Resource
- The earliest ruminant was probably an ancestor of the present-day chevrotain. The chevrotain skeleton appears to have remained virtually unchanged for the past 30 million years and, although there are...
- 5.2 Pseudo-ruminants Resource
- Animals in the third suborder of the Artiodactlya, the pigs, peccaries and (according to most authorities) the hippopotamuses (suborder Suina), use a slight variant on the ruminant method, and are often...
- 5.3 Hindgut fermenters Resource
- The odd-toed ungulates (comprising the order Perissodactyla), the horses, tapirs and rhinoceroses, are hindgut fermenters, as are elephants. Update Table 2 with this information. These animals have a relatively...
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- 6 Grazers and browsers Resource
- A good deal of the discussion so far has been related to animals that eat leaves in the form of grass and other herbaceous plants, the grazers, but this is not the only type of plant food. Also available...
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- 7 Plant defences Resource
- Watch the ‘Plant Predators’ programme from 05.03–12.07 and make notes in answer to the following questions.
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- 8.1 Introduction Resource
- You know by now that plants can synthesise all the complex molecules that make up their tissues and seeds from very simple molecules – water, carbon dioxide and minerals from the soil. Mammals, on the...
- 8.2 Protein shortage Resource
- Most plant leaves and stems contain very low levels of protein and so herbivores need to make maximum use of the amount available. You will recall that proteins in the diet are digested to amino acids,...
- 8.3 Shortage of minerals Resource
- You may be familiar with salt licks that are provided for domesticated cattle. In the wild, grass is also often low in minerals (e.g. it has almost no sodium and very little calcium), so grazers may have...
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- 9 Wildebeest migration Resource
- The skill of thinking in a scientific way is as much a part of being a scientist as is knowing facts – perhaps more so. In this series of units, you'll not only come across facts about particular techniques,...
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- 10 Living in herds Resource
- Wildebeest are only one of the species of plant predator that live in herds. Many others do too.
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| | References and Acknowledgements | |
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