Would this desciption be positive or negative feedback and why

Question

A single sheep begins to flee from the herd. This stimulates several other sheep to flee. Soon, the entire flock is fleeing. A stampoede occurs.

Answer 1

Hi Angelica from Dry Ridge, KY...hope you had a great day at school.

Great question...certainly a Biology one. I am glad you contacted Wyzant and I am here to help you. I'm going to give you some things to think about, and you can put them into your argument of whether this example is a positive or negative feedback system.

Make sure you understand what is meant by a negative feedback and a positive feedback system. Basically,[to make sure you can put it into simple words] a positive feedback is a system what keeps a system moving or increase in whatever the system does. So the negative feedback would be the opposite, something in the system that causes the system to stop or decrease what the system does. Both systems however require a stimulus, something to cause the system to change.

Say your herd of sheep[just to let you know I can speak from experience because I herded sheep when I was a kid] are just out munching in the field...the their stimulus is that they are hungry and just keep munching away...moving from bush to bush...each of them as a group away of the others, until they realized, 'HEY! I'm thristy'...let's go get a drink...so I'll began to walk toward the water, they follow, they drink and after awhile they realize...HEY...I'm not thirsty anymore, but now I'm hungry! Let's go back to the grass. This goes on for the rest of the day, until its time to go back to the corral because at night, we know we'll[the sheep will be safe]. Each of the different parts, grass, security, water, grass, corral...lead to the system [the sheep moving along] We can say this is a positive feedback, it keeps the system moving.

Now say, while eating grass, a pack of wolves decides to attack. Now if only one wolves is the driving force and they start, first one sheep, then another, then the entire herd start a stampede all running back to the corral and all are safe, we might this is a positive feedback, the stimulus, the wolf, created a change in the system, but all are safe and nothing happened to the system.

But now, consider an entire pack attacks[which in Nature is the way the operate] one starts the stampede, while other wolves wait for the sheep to be driven into an area where all the rest of the wolves are, which puts them at risk of being wolf munchies. Not what is good for the system.

In this scenario, not good for the sheep, so in their case, it would be a negative result, and possibly a negative feedback, because the single wolf, the stimulus, cause a negative change for the sheep. 

In conclusion, either the positive or negative feedback depends on 2 things, the stimulus and the end result. What is the stimulus to change the system and what is the result of the system, is it good or bad for the system. Does it help the system continue or does it cause the system to have a negative result. 

I hope this helps.

It would be nice to see your final conclusion.