Life Cycles of Plants and Animals

A seedling and a kitten look very different. Yet each belongs to a kind of living thing with a life cycle. A life cycle describes the changes from the beginning of life through growth, reproduction, and death.

Four big steps

Life begins, the living thing grows, it can reproduce, and it dies. Reproduction means making new living things of the same kind. These young are called offspring. Some individuals die before they reproduce. The life cycle describes the pattern for their kind.

A young plant forms inside a seed before the seed sprouts. Sprouting begins its next stage of growth. An animal may be born alive or hatch from an egg.

Follow the arrows

Draw four labels around a circle: egg, chick, young chicken, adult chicken. Join them with arrows in that order. Add an arrow from the adult hen to a new egg. Label it "lays eggs."

The first arrows follow one chicken growing up. The last arrow shows reproduction: a new generation begins. The hen does not become an egg again. A stage is one part of the story, such as the chick stage.

Death belongs in the life cycle too. You could draw a separate arrow from an adult to the word "death." It does not lead back to an egg. Diagrams often leave death out so they can show how reproduction keeps the pattern going.

Living, once alive, or never alive?

A living bean plant grows and makes its own food. Its leaves can turn toward light. Animals take in food, grow, and move. Living things also reproduce as part of their life cycle.

A wooden table is made from a tree that was alive. A fallen, dead leaf was part of a living plant. We call these once alive. A rock was never alive. A toy car moves when pushed, but it does not grow or make offspring. Movement alone does not make something living.

Short lives and long lives

An adult mayfly may live a day or less. Its young may already have spent months underwater. A bean plant can grow from a seed to new seeds in months. An oak tree can live for hundreds of years. Count the young stages too when thinking about a whole life.

If the last members of a kind die, that kind becomes extinct. No living members remain to reproduce. The flightless dodo became extinct more than 300 years ago. The great dinosaurs such as Tyrannosaurus died out about 66 million years ago. Fossils help us learn about their lives.

Look at a young cat beside its mother. Both have whiskers, fur, and claws. The kitten is smaller and cannot do everything the adult can do yet.

The same kind, with differences

Offspring are the same kind of living thing as their parents. Cats have kittens. An acorn grows into an oak, even if a maple tree grows nearby. A young animal may look very different from an adult and still belong to the same kind.

Most animals have two parents. Their offspring get a mix of features from both. A puppy might have curly fur like its mother and dark fur like its father. Other puppies in the litter can get different mixes. Brothers and sisters often look alike without looking exactly the same.

Growth changes more than size

A kitten's eyes open, its teeth grow, and its legs become stronger. It learns to run, climb, and hunt. Compare the kitten and adult using the same features:

The kitten's larger-looking ears do not make it another kind of animal. The proportions of its body change as it grows.

Plants have family features too

A sunflower seed grows into a sunflower. Its flower head might be larger or smaller than its parent's. Pollen often comes from another plant of the same kind, so a seedling can get a mix of features from two parents. Seeds from one flower can grow into plants of different heights.

Some new plants grow from a piece of one parent instead. A cutting or a runner makes a copy of that parent. It does not mix features from two parents.

What happened during a life?

A dog learns to sit when someone trains it. Its puppies must learn that skill themselves. A scar on a cat came from an injury; its kittens are not born with matching scars.

Growing conditions matter too. A plant in deep shade may grow weak. Its seeds can still grow into strong plants in sunlight. The parent's weak growth does not mean every seedling must grow weakly.

When you compare parents and young, ask what you can actually see. Fur color is a body feature. Knowing a trick is a learned skill. Getting bigger is a change with age. These observations help you explain differences without mixing up their causes.

A puppy, a whale calf, and a baby bat are all young mammals. They live in different places, but their mothers make milk to feed them. Mammals also have hair or fur and breathe air with lungs.

Follow a dog

Most mammals grow inside their mother's body before birth. Follow these steps for a dog:

1. Puppies grow inside the mother for about 9 weeks, or 63 days.
2. A litter, or group of puppies, is born. Their eyes are closed.
3. The puppies drink milk. Their eyes open at about 2 weeks.
4. They begin eating solid food, growing stronger, and exploring.
5. Grown dogs can have puppies, starting a new generation.

Most dogs reach full size at about 1 to 2 years. The time depends on the breed. Many can have puppies before they finish growing, so body size alone does not tell you whether an animal can reproduce.

Young mammals keep the same basic body shape as they grow. They do not go through the large body change called metamorphosis.

Time and care

A mouse grows inside its mother for about 3 weeks. She often has six or more babies together. An elephant grows inside its mother for almost 2 years and is usually born alone. The calf drinks milk for years and stays close to its mother.

Milk, warmth, and protection help young mammals survive. They also need time to learn. Human life stages are baby → child → teenager → adult → older adult. Humans are mammals, and children need adult care for many years.

Tiny babies in pouches

A kangaroo is a marsupial. Its baby is born very tiny and continues growing in a pouch. A red kangaroo's baby, called a joey, is born after about 33 days. It is about the size of a jelly bean. It crawls into the pouch and drinks milk there. It leaves the pouch for good at about 8 months old. Koalas and opossums are marsupials too.

Mammals that lay eggs

A platypus and an echidna hatch from eggs. These egg-laying mammals are called monotremes. A platypus usually lays 1 to 3 eggs in a burrow. An echidna lays one egg in a pouch-like fold of skin. After hatching, their young drink milk from patches on the mother's skin.

You cannot rule out a mammal just because it hatches. Check its other features, including milk and fur. A whale is also a mammal: it breathes air and feeds its calf milk, even though it lives in water.

Feathers are the clearest clue that an animal is a bird. Birds have beaks and wings, and all birds lay eggs with hard shells. They do not give birth to live young.

Growing inside an egg

A chick grows inside a fertilized egg. The yolk supplies its food. Keeping an egg warm as the chick develops is called incubation. In most kinds of birds, a parent sits on the eggs.

A hen incubates her eggs for about 21 days. The chick uses a small hard tip on its beak, the egg tooth, to break the shell. Coming out of the egg is called hatching. The new bird is a hatchling.

Many eggs sold for food are not fertilized. Keeping one warm will not make a chick grow inside it. A chick can develop only in an egg that has been fertilized.

Two beginnings after hatching

A chicken hatchling has soft, fluffy feathers called down. Within hours, it can walk and peck at food. Its mother protects it while it grows adult feathers.

A newly hatched American robin has closed eyes and few feathers. It stays in the nest, and its parents bring food. Its eggs hatch after about 2 weeks. The young leave the nest about 2 weeks later.

These chicks need different care because they are at different stages of development when they hatch.

Name the growing stages

A nestling is a young bird still growing in its nest. A fledgling has feathers and is leaving the nest or learning to fly. It may still need its parents. Becoming a fledgling is not the same as becoming an adult ready to reproduce.

Follow a robin as egg → hatchling → nestling → fledgling → adult. An adult female can lay eggs after finding a mate. That arrow begins the next generation.

Other ways to keep eggs warm

An Australian brush-turkey buries its eggs in a mound of leaves. The mound keeps them warm without a parent sitting on them. Some cuckoos lay eggs in other birds' nests. Those birds raise the cuckoo chicks.

Birds and mammals both grow and often receive parental care. Most mammals begin outside the mother by being born; birds hatch. Frogs and insects hatch too, so an egg alone is not a clue that something is a bird.

A tadpole has a tail and no legs when it hatches. You might mistake it for a fish. It is a young amphibian on its way to becoming a frog.

What metamorphosis means

Metamorphosis is a large change in body shape and way of life during growth. Frogs go through it. Mammals and birds do not. Amphibians include frogs, toads, newts, and salamanders. They have moist skin. Many start life in water and return there as adults to lay eggs.

Follow the changes

1. Eggs: A frog lays frogspawn in water. Each egg sits inside protective jelly. Many frogs lay clumps; many toads lay long strings around water plants.
2. Tadpole: A tadpole hatches and swims with its tail. It breathes with gills, which take oxygen from water. It eats mostly tiny plants and algae.
3. Tadpole with legs: Back legs appear first, then front legs. Lungs develop as the gills disappear. The tail gets shorter.
4. Froglet: This small frog has legs and a short tail stump. It is still changing.
5. Adult frog: The tail is gone. The frog breathes with lungs and through its skin. Common frogs spend much of their adult life on land and eat insects and other small animals.

An adult female can return to the pond to lay eggs. The next tadpoles belong to a new generation.

The tail is reused

A froglet does not drop its tail like a loose piece of string. The body takes the tail material back in and uses it as the frog changes. This is why you can see a series of shorter tails during the change.

Watch a common frog's timing

One clump of spawn can hold more than 1,000 eggs. Tadpoles hatch after about 1 to 3 weeks. Changing from tadpole to froglet takes about 12 to 16 weeks. Warmth affects the timing, so not every pond follows the same calendar.

Many eggs and tadpoles are eaten by fish, birds, and water insects. Others fail to survive for different reasons. Laying many eggs gives some young a chance to reach adulthood.

Match a body to its home

A tail helps a tadpole move through pond water. Gills let it breathe there. Later, strong legs help a frog move on land, and lungs let it breathe air. Its food changes too. A tadpole and a frog are not two different kinds of animal. They are two stages with bodies suited to different ways of life.

A caterpillar and a butterfly are the same animal at different stages. The change between them is called complete metamorphosis. It has four stages: egg → larva → pupa → adult.

Egg and larva

An adult female butterfly lays eggs on plants. Monarchs use milkweed, which their caterpillars eat. A larva hatches from each egg. A butterfly larva is called a caterpillar.

The caterpillar eats and grows. Its outer skin cannot stretch enough to fit all that growth. It sheds its skin several times. Shedding an outer covering is called molting.

An insect has six legs, three main body parts, and a hard outer covering called an exoskeleton. A caterpillar has six true legs near its head. The extra stubby legs farther back help it grip plants. Those extra legs do not make it a worm.

The pupa changes inside

When the caterpillar is ready, it hangs still and sheds its skin again. The body underneath is the pupa. A butterfly pupa is also called a chrysalis. Its outer skin becomes firm.

You cannot see much movement outside. Inside, the body changes into the adult form, with wings, long legs, and antennae. The pupa is alive and changing, not simply asleep.

A cocoon is different: it is a silk covering around a pupa. Many moth caterpillars spin cocoons. A chrysalis is the butterfly pupa itself.

Adult and new eggs

The butterfly comes out with soft, crumpled wings. It pumps fluid into them and waits for them to dry. Then it can fly, feed on nectar, find a mate, and lay eggs.

The adult does not keep growing larger like the caterpillar. A small butterfly is an adult, not a baby butterfly waiting to grow big wings.

Follow one monarch

In summer, a monarch egg hatches after about 3 to 5 days. The caterpillar eats and grows for about 10 to 14 days. The pupa stage lasts about 8 to 14 days. From egg to adult takes about three to five weeks. The caterpillar grows from about 2 millimeters to about 4 to 5 centimeters long.

Other insects follow the same four stages. Beetles, ladybugs, bees, ants, flies, and moths have complete metamorphosis. A beetle larva is often a grub; a fly larva is a maggot. A mealworm is a beetle larva. A ladybug larva looks spiky and eats aphids. You may not recognize these young insects from their adult shapes.

A young grasshopper already has the outline of a grasshopper. It will grow through incomplete metamorphosis: egg → nymph → adult. There is no pupa stage.

Growing through molts

The young insect is a nymph. A grasshopper nymph looks like a small adult without full wings. Its hard outer covering does not stretch enough for growth. It molts, leaving the old covering behind.

After each molt, its wing buds get larger. At the final molt, it becomes an adult with full wings. A grasshopper nymph usually molts about five times. Both nymphs and adults eat plants.

The word "incomplete" does not mean the insect failed to finish growing. It names the path with no pupa. An adult grasshopper is fully developed.

A young insect underwater

A dragonfly also has incomplete metamorphosis. The female lays eggs in or near water. The nymph lives underwater for months or even years. It breathes with gills and catches small animals to eat.

When ready, it climbs a plant stem out of the water. Its skin splits, and the winged adult crawls out. The empty skin stays behind. There was no pupa between the swimming nymph and the flying adult.

A nymph's home can differ greatly from the adult's. You need to follow the stages, not just decide from where the animal lives.

Compare the two paths

Butterfly larvae eat leaves, while the adults drink nectar. Grasshopper nymphs and adults eat the same plants. In both paths, young insects molt as they grow.

Crickets, cockroaches, praying mantises, and mayflies also have incomplete metamorphosis. Ants have complete metamorphosis: their young are small, white larvae that later become pupae.

To identify a path, look for a pupa stage. If you followed an insect from egg through several nymph molts straight to adult, that is incomplete metamorphosis. A wingless young cricket is still a cricket, with more growing to do.

Split open a soaked bean seed and you can find more than food. There is a tiny young plant inside, with a tiny root and shoot. Its protective outer layer is the seed coat. Two thick seed leaves hold most of the bean's stored food.

Follow germination

Germination is when a seed starts growing. The seed takes in water and swells. The seed coat splits. The root comes out first and grows downward. Then the shoot grows upward toward the surface.

The growing plant uses food already stored inside the seed. Beans and peas can germinate in darkness. Once green leaves open, the young plant needs light to make food. This young plant is a seedling. Its first leaves can look different from later leaves.

What does a seed need?

Seeds need water, warmth, and air to germinate. Warmth means a suitable temperature for that kind of seed. Air supplies oxygen. A resting seed can wait a long time before it starts growing.

A bean does not need soil just to germinate. It can sprout on a damp paper towel. Later, soil helps support the plant and supplies minerals and water. Keep the towel damp, not flooded: covering seeds with water leaves them little air.

Plan a fair test

To test a need, change one thing and keep other things the same. The thing you change is the variable. Use the same kind and number of seeds, the same cups, and the same length of time.

Here is one test with 10 bean seeds in each cup:

The warm cups are about 20°C (68°F). Cup C is refrigerated at about 4°C (39°F). Compare each test cup with A. Comparing B with C changes both water and temperature, so it is harder to explain a difference.

Read example results

Imagine that after 7 days, A has 9 sprouted seeds, B has 0, C has 0, and D has 1. These are example results. Nine out of ten in A means 90% germinated. The results support the idea that water, warmth, and air help seeds germinate.

You cannot tell exactly why the tenth seed in A did not sprout. It might need more time, be unhealthy, or be dead. Testing several seeds helps stop one unusual seed from deciding the result. Repeat the test with fresh seeds to see whether the same pattern appears.

A seedling grows roots, a stem, and leaves. When old enough, a flowering plant makes flowers. Inside a flower, several parts work together to make seeds.

Match the parts with their jobs

The carpel, also called the pistil, is the female part. Its stigma, style, and ovary make a connected path. Pollen is a fine powder made by anthers.

First, move the pollen

Pollination moves pollen from an anther to a stigma. It can happen within one flower, between flowers on one plant, or between two plants of the same kind. Apple pollen can help an apple flower make seeds, but it cannot do that job in a rose.

A bee visits flowers for sweet nectar and pollen to eat. Pollen sticks to its hairy body. Some rubs onto a stigma when it visits another flower. Butterflies, moths, hummingbirds, and bats can move pollen too.

Some plants use wind. Grasses and many trees make lots of light pollen. Their flowers are often small, without bright petals, scent, or nectar. Many insect-pollinated flowers attract visitors with color, scent, and nectar.

Next, join the cells

After pollination, a pollen grain can grow a tube. It grows down through the style into the ovary. A male cell travels through the tube and joins an egg cell inside an ovule. This joining is fertilization.

The fertilized ovule develops into a seed. In a cherry flower, the ovary grows into the fruit around the seed. The petals dry up and fall. Pollination moves pollen; fertilization joins cells. They are different steps.

Watch a cherry form

In spring, bees carry pollen to cherry blossoms. After fertilization, the ovary swells. A cherry develops, with a seed inside its hard stone. By summer, the ripe fruit can help the seed travel.

A fruit does not have to taste sweet. Pea pods, tomatoes, cucumbers, and acorns are fruits in science. A pea pod holds peas, which are seeds.

Seed dispersal comes later. It moves finished seeds away from the parent. A bee moving pollen is helping pollination, even though it moves between plants.

Imagine every seed falling directly beneath its parent plant. The seedlings would share a crowded patch of light, water, and space. Seed dispersal spreads seeds away, giving some a chance to grow elsewhere.

Read the traveling clues

Different features help seeds travel in different ways:

• Wind: A dandelion's fluffy parachute catches moving air. A maple's wing makes its seed spin as it falls.
• Animals eating fruit: A bird eats a juicy berry. Seeds can pass through its body and leave in droppings somewhere else.
• Animals carrying seeds: Hooks on burdock burrs catch fur or socks. Squirrels and jays bury acorns, then leave some uneaten.
• Water: A coconut's floating, protective fruit can carry its seed across the sea.
• Bursting pods: Dry pea and bean pods twist and split, throwing seeds away. Touch-me-not pods can burst when touched.

Use a feature as evidence for your prediction. A seed with tiny hooks is likely to catch on an animal. A light seed with a wing is likely to travel on wind. Look at the whole fruit too: the seed may travel inside it.

Put the whole cycle in order

Follow a bean from one generation to the next:

1. A seed germinates where there is water, warmth, and air.
2. A seedling grows roots, a stem, and leaves.
3. The adult plant grows flowers.
4. Pollination brings pollen to a stigma.
5. Fertilization happens inside an ovule.
6. Seeds develop inside a fruit, the bean pod.
7. The seeds are dispersed and can grow into new plants.

The final arrow goes to a new seed, not back to the parent plant becoming small again.

One season or many years?

A sunflower, bean, or marigold can complete its life cycle in one growing season. It makes seeds and then dies. Those seeds can continue its kind.

An apple tree, oak, or tulip can live for many years. It can flower and make seeds again in later seasons. Making seeds does not mean a plant must die straight away.

Compare a sunflower and an apple tree. Both make flowers, fruits, and seeds. The sunflower's whole life fits into one season. The tree can repeat the flowering and seed-making stages while the same tree stays alive.

Dispersal gives seeds a journey, but landing is only part of success. A seed must reach conditions where it can germinate and the seedling can grow. Some seeds land in dry places or get eaten; not every journey produces a new plant.

You can start a new mint plant from a stem. No seed has to form first. Growing a new plant from part of one parent is asexual reproduction.

Flowering plants also use sexual reproduction: a male cell from pollen joins an egg cell in an ovule, leading to a seed. Asexual reproduction does not need that joining step.

Grow a cutting

A cutting is a piece taken from a parent plant. A stem cutting can grow roots and become a separate plant. Mint, willow, geraniums, and coleus can grow this way.

Ask an adult to help with cutting tools. Choose a healthy stem about 10 centimeters long. Cut just below where a leaf joins the stem. Remove the lowest leaves so they will not sit in water. Stand the stem in water or place it in damp soil. Keep it warm, away from strong sunlight.

Watch for roots, often after about 1 to 3 weeks. Record when the first root appears and what happens to the leaves. A rooted cutting is a new plant, with the original plant as its one parent.

Stored food underground

A bulb has a short underground stem wrapped in thick, fleshy leaves. The leaves store food. Onions, tulips, and daffodils grow from bulbs. Small new bulbs form beside the older one and can be separated. A garlic bulb has cloves, each able to grow into a new plant.

A tuber is a swollen underground stem. A potato is a tuber. Its "eyes" are buds. A planted piece with an eye can make shoots, roots, and a new plant. A potato is not a root: those buds show it is a stem.

Stems that reach outward

A strawberry runner is a long stem along the ground. A new little plant forms where it touches soil and grows roots. The young plant can later live separately.

A spider plant carries little plantlets on long stems. These can root when they reach soil. Some plants, such as African violets, can even make a new plant from a leaf placed in damp soil.

A bulb is not a large seed. Its food-filled leaves and short stem are parts of the parent plant. A seed contains a young plant formed after fertilization. Both can start growth, but they were made in different ways.

A strawberry plant can make flowers and seeds. It can also send out runners. These two ways of reproducing give its offspring different advantages.

What a copy keeps

A plant grown from a cutting, bulb, runner, or tuber copies one parent. It is called a clone. Gardeners use this method to keep a useful feature, such as flower color or a kind of fruit.

Copies still need suitable growing conditions. Two copies can grow to different sizes if one gets less water or light. Copying the parent does not replace the need for care.

Most store bananas come from plants grown from shoots. Their fruits do not have seeds that can grow. Farmers often grow potatoes from pieces called seed potatoes. Despite that name, these are tubers, not seeds.

Seeds can mix features

A seed can form using pollen from its own plant or another plant of the same kind. With pollen from a different plant, the young plant gets a mix of two parents' features. Seedlings can differ from each other.

Beans and peas often pollinate themselves. Their seedlings can still vary a little. Seeds from one apple often grow into trees with apples that taste different from the parent's fruit.

Compare the choices

Asexual reproduction does not need pollinators or another parent. Stored food in parts such as bulbs helps new growth. Variation among seedlings means some may survive a change that harms others.

Try a strawberry comparison. One young plant grows from a runner. Another grows from a seed in a berry. The runner plant copies the parent's features. The seedling may have berries with different size or sweetness. The parent can use both ways during its life.

Small spores, not seeds

Ferns and mosses do not make flowers or seeds. They spread tiny spores, which wind can carry. Brown dots under many fern leaves hold spores. A spore is much smaller than a seed and has no tiny plant with a food store like the one inside a bean.

Mushrooms and other fungi also spread spores. Fungi are a different group from plants. Seeing spores does not mean you have found a flowering plant's seeds.

A frog and a butterfly both hatch from eggs. That is a useful similarity, but it does not tell their whole stories. A comparison uses the same questions for both living things.

Choose features to compare

Ask how life begins, what stages follow, and where the young live. Look for metamorphosis, parental care, and the time needed to grow. A table puts the evidence side by side.

A Venn diagram uses overlapping circles. Put shared features in the overlap and differences in the separate parts. For a frog and butterfly, "hatches from an egg" belongs in the overlap. "Has a pupa" belongs only in the butterfly circle.

Turn a table into sentences

Use "both" to name a similarity and "but" to introduce a difference. For example: "A frog and a butterfly both hatch from eggs, but only the butterfly has a pupa stage."

For mammals and birds, compare carefully: most mammals are born alive, but platypuses and echidnas hatch. A life cycle can share one feature with another group without belonging to that group.

Life cycles fit different homes

A sea turtle lays eggs in beach sand. Its hatchlings crawl to the sea. An emperor penguin father balances the egg on his feet and keeps it warm through Antarctic winter for about two months. The mother feeds at sea during this time. Both young hatch from eggs, but the eggs are protected in very different ways.

Watch like a naturalist

A naturalist studies living things by observing them closely. More than 300 years ago, Maria Sibylla Merian watched and painted caterpillars turning into butterflies and moths. Jane Goodall began studying wild chimpanzees in Tanzania in 1960. Her observations included young staying close to their mothers for years.

You can keep an observation diary too. Write the date, draw what you see, and measure or count something. Measure a caterpillar in millimeters every two days, or count a seedling's leaves each week. Keep using the same method. Compare several dates to see the order of changes; one drawing cannot show a whole life cycle.

An animal does not need every egg to survive for its kind to continue. Enough young must grow up and reproduce. Different life cycles give those young different chances.

Many young or lots of care

A common frog can lay more than 1,000 eggs and leave them. Many eggs and tadpoles are eaten. Dandelions make many seeds that scatter; many land where they cannot grow. Making many offspring means some can survive even when many die.

An elephant usually has one calf at a time. It feeds and protects the calf for years. A wandering albatross lays one egg and feeds its chick for many months. Care helps a larger share of these young survive.

These are different ways of keeping a kind going. A frog is not making a human choice about being a good or bad parent.

Work through a survival example

Imagine two frog parents produce 2,000 eggs. Only two grow into adults. That is one survivor for each group of 1,000 eggs. Those two adults can replace the two parents, even though most eggs did not survive. Real numbers vary between places and years.

Each stage fits its needs

A caterpillar spends much of its time eating and growing. An adult butterfly can fly to find mates and places for eggs. The different bodies help with different activities.

A tadpole's gills and tail suit pond life. A common frog's lungs and strong legs help it catch food on land. A seed has a protective coat. It can travel and wait for suitable growing conditions. Bird eggs have shells; frog eggs have jelly. A chrysalis may look like a leaf or twig, helping it hide from animals that would eat it.

Timing helps too

Food changes with the seasons. Many birds lay eggs when insects are plentiful for their chicks. Frogs often spawn in spring as water warms. Many seeds germinate when the ground becomes warm and damp. Young need useful conditions at the stage when they are most vulnerable.

Connect a change to a stage

Draining a pond removes a place for frogs to lay eggs and tadpoles to grow. Even adult frogs living nearby may then struggle to produce a next generation. Some crop sprays kill caterpillars or bees. That can interrupt butterfly growth or the pollination of flowers.

Planting milkweed gives monarchs a place to lay eggs and food for their caterpillars. Leaving wild garden corners helps insects and birds find food and shelter. To explain how a change helps, name the living thing, the stage affected, and what that stage needs.