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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.
A freshwater aquatic food web. The blue arrows show a complete food chain (algae → daphnia → gizzard shad → largemouth bass → great blue heron). A food web is the natural interconnection of food chains and a graphical representation of what-eats-what in an ecological community.
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 ...
Few species were originally considered to feed directly on seagrass leaves (partly because of their low nutritional content), but scientific reviews and improved working methods have shown that seagrass herbivory is a highly important link in the food chain, with hundreds of species feeding on seagrasses worldwide, including green turtles ...
This has significant biological importance to cascading effects of food chains in coral reef ecosystems and may provide yet another key to unlocking the paradox. Cyanobacteria provide soluble nitrates via nitrogen fixation. [129] Coral reefs often depend on surrounding habitats, such as seagrass meadows and mangrove forests, for nutrients ...
The reef flat is the shoreward, flat, broadest area of the reef. The reef flat is found in fairly shallow water and can be uncovered during low tide. This area of the reef is only slightly sloped towards the open ocean. [5] Since the reef flat is adjacent or nearly adjacent to land, it sustains the most damage from runoff and sediments.
Coastal fish are found in the waters above the continental shelves that extend from the continental shorelines, and around the coral reefs that surround volcanic islands. . The total world shoreline extends for 356,000 km (221,000 mi) [3] and the continental shelves occupy a total area of 24.3 million km 2 (9 376 million sq mi)
Yellow longnose butterflyfish browsing on coral polyps. A corallivore is an animal that feeds on coral. Corallivores are an important group of reef organism because they can influence coral abundance, distribution, and community structure. Corallivores feed on coral using a variety of unique adaptations and strategies.