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A food web model is a network of food chains. Each food chain starts with a primary producer or autotroph, an organism, such as an alga or a plant, which is able to manufacture its own food. Next in the chain is an organism that feeds on the primary producer, and the chain continues in this way as a string of successive predators.
The microbial food web refers to the combined trophic interactions among microbes in aquatic environments. These microbes include viruses, bacteria, algae, heterotrophic protists (such as ciliates and flagellates). [1] In aquatic ecosystems, microbial food webs are essential because they form the basis for the cycling of nutrients and energy.
Charles Elton subsequently pioneered the concept of food cycles, food chains, and food size in his classical 1927 book "Animal Ecology"; Elton's 'food cycle' was replaced by 'food web' in a subsequent ecological text. [96] After Charles Elton's use of food webs in his 1927 synthesis, [97] they became a central concept in the field of ecology.
The tiny marine cyanobacterium Prochlorococcus, discovered in 1986, forms today part of the base of the ocean food chain and accounts for more than half the photosynthesis of the open ocean [23] and an estimated 20% of the oxygen in the Earth's atmosphere. [24]
Food chain in a Swedish lake. Osprey feed on northern pike, which in turn feed on perch which eat bleak which eat crustaceans.. A food chain is a linear network of links in a food web, often starting with an autotroph (such as grass or algae), also called a producer, and typically ending at an apex predator (such as grizzly bears or killer whales), detritivore (such as earthworms and woodlice ...
The ocean's surface is hit hard by anthropogenic change, and the surface ecosystem is likely already dramatically different from even a few hundred years ago. For example, prior to widespread damming, logging, and industrialisation, more wood may have entered the open ocean, [14] while plastic had not yet been invented. And because floating ...
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution's Glen Gawarkiewicz joins Yahoo Finance’s Akiko Fujita and the On The Move panel to discuss how businesses have been impacted by extreme weather and other ...
The aquatic microbial loop is a marine trophic pathway which incorporates dissolved organic carbon into the food chain.. The microbial loop describes a trophic pathway where, in aquatic systems, dissolved organic carbon (DOC) is returned to higher trophic levels via its incorporation into bacterial biomass, and then coupled with the classic food chain formed by phytoplankton-zooplankton-nekton.