using the provided image of a food web please answer the following questions 1.
ID: 101439 • Letter: U
Question
using the provided image of a food web please answer the following questions
1. Name at least two producers, two herbivores and two carnivores in this food web
2. How does energy travel through this food web? What happens to the amount of energy as it moves through the trophic levels?
3. What is the maximum number of trophic levels in this food web?
4. Explain how one element cycle through this food web, mention at least 3 processes involved.
5. How may human activities negatively impact this ecosystem?
Explanation / Answer
1) Plants and organisms like algae and cyanobacteria are considered as producers which produces biomass using the sun’s energy.
Insects like grass hopper and cattle like cow and goats can be considered as herbivore feed on primary producers
Eagles and foxes can be considered as carnivore feeding on herbivores
2) Energy is transferred through the separate trophic levels of a food chain first from sun to producers like plants and algae which uses solar energy and convert it into chemical energy and storing as carbon compound which later taken up by primary consumers like cattle and insects secondary consumers also need to gain energy in some way, and this is by eating the primary consumers and the energy is transferred to tertiary consumers which feed on primary consumers.
The energy decreases as it moved up in food chain as the energy is used for respiration and metabolism for this purpose energy is lost in the environment by lost in respiration, as heat, faeces and urine energy cannot be 100% efficient.
3) The food chains consists of a maximum of four trophic levels.
1st Trophic Level: Producer like plants making there own food
2nd Trophic Level: Primary Consumer feed on plants like insects and mices feeding on grains.
3rd Trophic Level: Secondary Consumer these are consumers which feed on primary consumers like snakes feeding on mice
4th Trophic Level: Tertiary Consumer consists of tertiary consumers feeding on primary consumer and secondary consumers like hawks feeding on snakes.
4) The energy which is gained form sun is stored in plants in form of carbon and again it is return to environment by series of food chain in form of decomposition and decaying. The various cycles include.
Carbon cycle: The carbon gained in environment by plants is again release in environment by decomposition and respiration.
Nitrogen Cycle: Nitrogen is fixed by plants and bacteria it is released in environment on decomposition
Phosphorous cycle: Phosphorous is gained by plants through soil and gained is released in environment by decomposition.
5) The increase pollution and deforestation activities by humans have impacted the environment seriously. Due to less of available of plants decreasing forest cover primary consumers are facing a threat for survival impacting the food chain, tertiary and secondary consumers dependent on primary consumers are also affected. Due to increase use of pesticide and insecticide primary consumers like insects and birds feeding on grains are affected which affects the secondary and tertiary consumers dependant on them.
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