Dr. Ben Dantzer, a faculty member here at Michigan, studies red squirrels that live in the boreal forest. The boreal forest contains coniferous trees, which produce seeds but not flowers. In his study sites, white spruce is by far the most common tree species, and is eaten by the red squirrels. Which of the following can be used to describe the red squirrels? (Check all that apply)

__ gymnosperm

__ dominant species

__ herbivore

__ primary consumer

__ eukaryote

__ angiosperm

__ primary producer

__ heterotroph

Answer: herbivore, eukaryote, primary consumer

Explanation:

The red squirrel can be described by the following features.

1. Herbivore: A herbivore is an animal which is dependent upon the plant and their products for it's food requirement. Here, the red squirrel is the herbivore because it is dependent upon the spruce tree seeds for their food requirement.

2. Eukaryote: A eukaryotic organism is the one which has well define nucleus and encloses the genetic material in the nucleus. The red squirrel is a complex eukaryotic organism.

3. Primary consumer: In a food chain a primary consumer is an organism which is dependent upon plants and their food products for energy and food needs. The red squirrel is the primary consumer this is because of the fact that it consumes on the seeds of the spruce trees.

heterotroph, primary consumer, eukaryote, herbivore.

Explanation:

Eukaryote is a unicellular or multicellular being that has a nuclear membrane, that is, its cell nucleus is separated from the cytoplasm by a membrane, unlike prokaryotes, which do not have a nuclear membrane. As we know animal cells have a separate nucleus from cytoplasm, as red squirrels are animals, we can say that they are eukaryotes.

Heterotrophs are living things that are unable to produce their own food and therefore need to ingest or absorb preformed organic molecules from other living things to obtain energy and synthesis of the biomolecules they need. As we can see from the question above, red squirrels do not produce their food as they feed on white spruce, so we can say that squirrels are heterotrophs.

In addition, we can say that red squirrels are herbivores, as the white spruce is a tree and herbivores are animals that feed exclusively on vegetables.

Finally, we can say that red squirrels are primary consumers. This is because primary consumers are those heterotrophic beings that feed on producers, that is, on plants and algae. As can be seen, these are herbivorous animals.