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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 ...
Ecosystem classifications are specific kinds of ecological classifications that consider all four elements of the definition of ecosystems: a biotic component, an abiotic complex, the interactions between and within them, and the physical space they occupy. Biotic factors of the ecosystem are living things; such as plants, animals, and bacteria ...
However, in aquatic ecosystems, primary producers are consumed by herbivores at a rate four times greater than in terrestrial ecosystems. [22] Although this topic is highly debated, researchers have attributed the distinction in herbivore control to several theories, including producer to consumer size ratios and herbivore selectivity.
A bear with a salmon. Interspecific interactions such as predation are a key aspect of community ecology.. In ecology, a community is a group or association of populations of two or more different species occupying the same geographical area at the same time, also known as a biocoenosis, biotic community, biological community, ecological community, or life assemblage.
To be a consumer, an organism does not necessarily need to be carnivorous; it could only eat plants (producers), in which case it would be located in the first level of the food chain above the producers. Some carnivorous plants, like the Venus flytrap, are classified as both a producer and a consumer. [2]
In small, forested streams, for example, the volume of higher levels is greater than could be supported by the local primary production. Energy usually enters ecosystems from the Sun. The primary producers at the base of the pyramid use solar radiation to power photosynthesis which produces food.
Ecosystem services are ecologically mediated functional processes essential to sustaining healthy human societies. [6] Water provision and filtration, production of biomass in forestry, agriculture, and fisheries, and removal of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO 2) from the atmosphere are examples of ecosystem services essential to public health and economic opportunity.
Gross primary production (GPP) is the amount of chemical energy, typically expressed as carbon biomass, that primary producers create in a given length of time.Some fraction of this fixed energy is used by primary producers for cellular respiration and maintenance of existing tissues (i.e., "growth respiration" and "maintenance respiration").