"…Everything affecting the gopher tortoise's habitat affects the tortoise and … eventually affects all other organisms in its ecosystem. Efforts to save the gopher tortoise are really a manifestation of our desire to preserve intact, significant pieces of the biosphere. …We must preserve…the gopher tortoise and other species in similar predicaments, for if we do not, we lose a part of our humanity, a part of our habitat, and ultimately our world." — Dr. George W. Folkerts, "The Gopher Tortoise: A Species in Decline"

The gopher tortoise of the southeastern United States is a reptile that creates and lives in a subterranean burrow primarily in dry upland habitats. The are also found among coastal dunes. More than 350 species depend upon the gopher tortoise burrow for protection from temperature extremes and periodic fires. The fires, in turn, ensure that the canopy is open for plentiful sunlight. Low growing vegetation is the tortoise's primary diet and depends on open sunny areas. The animal species living in the burrow are known as commensals and include hundreds of invertebrates and vertebrates that would not survive without the burrows these tortoises create. This lesson is designed for students to deepen their understanding about symbiotic relationships and, most importantly, learn that the removal of a keystone species (the gopher tortoise) affects the entire food web of the habitats in which these inhabitants exist.