To use this site, please first read the section on Relationships. All of the pages on species are linked to each other based on relationships. At the bottom of each Species Page is a table like the ones below:
Here is the table for the Raccoon Species Page:
Great Horned Owl Woodchuck Amercian Bald Eagle Striped Skunk Humans Northern Bobwhite
Here is the table for the Black Oak Species Page:
Animals
Using as Food Source Animals
Using as Shelter Associations
With Other Plants Gypsy Moth Northern Flicker Southern Red Oak White-tailed Deer Wood Duck Gypsy Moth Wood Duck Wood Duck Common Grackle European Starlling Tufted Titmouse European Starling Downy Woodpecker Brown Thrasher Tufted Titmouse Downy Woodpecker Carolina Wren Eastern Chipmunk
These tables list the relationships of the species you are reading about. It is impossible to list every relationship a species has with every other species, but we have tried to show as many examples as possible. Each underlined species on the table links to the Species Page of that species. For example, if "Red-winged Blackbird" was listed under "PREY/FOOD" then you may click the mouse on that link and you would go to the Red-winged Blackbird Species Page.
Any species listed under PREY, PREY/FOOD, or FOOD means that it is eaten by the animal whose page you are on. If a species is listed under PREDATOR or ANIMAL USING AS FOOD SOURCE then that species eats whatever organism you are currently on.
SHELTER means that any plant or fungi listed is used in some way as a form of shelter, cover, or protection for the animal whose page you are on. This may mean a tree an animal lives in, a plant an animal lives on, or a plant or plant part that an animal uses to make a nest or structure. ANIMAL USING AS SHELTER means that any animal on the list uses the plant in some way as shelter, cover, or protection.
ASSOCIATION WITH OTHER PLANTS means that there are plants listed that grow near the plant whose page you are reading. For instance, Mockernut Hickory is listed in the ASSOCIATION WITH OTHER PLANTS column of Black Oak, because these two trees often grow next to each other. By doing so, they have a relationship of Competition for water, space, and nutrients; and they also provide protection to each other from wind, erosion, or other dangers. Poison Ivy is also listed in this column for Black Oak, because it is a vine that will grow up the trunk of the tree. This makes Poison Ivy a parasite of Black Oak. Poison Ivy may also be listed in the OTHER category because of this relationship.
OTHER is the column where all relationships besides the ones previously discussed are listed. For organizational purposes, it would be too difficult to make a column for every type of relationship. Examples of mutualsim, commensalism, parasitism, or other relationships may be listed here.
Each table has a maximum number of 20 spaces in each column. In order to keep pages neat and from getting too big, we have decided that 20 is the cutoff. For example, the Raccoon page lists 20 species under PREY/FOOD. There are way more foods that Raccoons eat, but it is too much trouble to list them all. For the 20 species that were listed, we tried to show a wide variety of foods that Raccoons eat.
If you are unsure of why a species showed up on a table, then read carefully. You should be able to find the answer either from the information in the page you are on, or from the information on the page of the species listed.