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Any impacts to key species in the food web can cause exponentially devastating effects on the rest of the food chain as a whole, as they will no longer have a reliable food source. If these larger organisms no longer have any source of nutrients, they too will eventually die off, and the entire Arctic ocean ecosystem will be affected.
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.
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 ...
For example, human food webs, agricultural food webs, detrital food webs, marine food webs, aquatic food webs, soil food webs, Arctic (or polar) food webs, terrestrial food webs, and microbial food webs. These characterizations stem from the ecosystem concept, which assumes that the phenomena under investigation (interactions and feedback loops ...
They are central to the functioning of ecosystems, the regulation of disease, and the maintenance of biodiversity. [13] When introduced to subarctic islands, for example, Arctic foxes' predation of seabirds has been shown to turn grassland into the tundra. [14] Such wide-ranging effects on lower levels of an ecosystem are termed trophic ...
The numbered steps it takes for the initial source of energy starting from the bottom to reach the top of the food web is called the food chain length. [33] While food chain lengths can fluctuate, aquatic ecosystems start with primary producers that are consumed by primary consumers which are consumed by secondary consumers, and those in turn ...
Furthermore, climate change may alter the efficiency of ecosystem services performed by Arctic ecosystems. [87] The Arctic has historically been deemed a low risk region for NIS invasion due to its harsh conditions, limited food sources, and limited access, which in turn resulted in low chances of survival and growth for the NIS. [80]
There are two major food chains: The primary food chain is the energy coming from autotrophs and passed on to the consumers; and the second major food chain is when carnivores eat the herbivores or decomposers that consume the autotrophic energy. [16] Consumers are broken down into primary consumers, secondary consumers and tertiary consumers.