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Biological control or biocontrol is a method of controlling pests, whether pest animals such as insects and mites, weeds, or pathogens affecting animals or plants by using other organisms. [1] It relies on predation , parasitism , herbivory , or other natural mechanisms, but typically also involves an active human management role.
Biological pest control does not seek to eradicate pests, but to keep them to economically minimal factors by reducing populations to acceptable levels. Some organisms have been intensively studied and are in modern commercial use. Many other organisms have potential and are candidates for use in this field.
One example of a biocontrol program that resulted in ecological damage occurred in North America, where a parasitoid of butterflies was introduced to control gypsy moth and browntail moth. This parasitoid is capable of utilizing many butterfly host species, and likely resulted in the decline and extirpation of several native silk moth species.
When energy is transferred to higher trophic levels, on average only about 10% is used at each level to build biomass, becoming stored energy. The rest goes to metabolic processes such as growth, respiration, and reproduction. [2] Advantages of the pyramid of energy as a representation: It takes account of the rate of production over a period ...
The energy transferred between levels can also be thought of as approximating to a transfer in biomass, so energy pyramids can also be viewed as biomass pyramids, picturing the amount of biomass that results at higher levels from biomass consumed at lower levels. However, when primary producers grow rapidly and are consumed rapidly, the biomass ...
An example of a topological food web (image courtesy of USDA) [1]. The soil food web is the community of organisms living all or part of their lives in the soil. It describes a complex living system in the soil and how it interacts with the environment, plants, and animals.
Biomagnification is a process causing the concentration of a substance (crosses) to increase at higher levels of the food chain. In this scenario, a pond has been contaminated with toxic waste. Further up the food chain, the concentration of the contaminant increases, sometimes resulting in the top consumer dying.
Biological thermodynamics (Thermodynamics of biological systems) is a science that explains the nature and general laws of thermodynamic processes occurring in living organisms as nonequilibrium thermodynamic systems that convert the energy of the Sun and food into other types of energy. The nonequilibrium thermodynamic state of living ...