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Tertiary consumers, which are sometimes also known as apex predators, are hypercarnivorous or omnivorous animals usually at the top of food chains, capable of feeding on both secondary consumers and primary consumers. Tertiary consumers are usually the largest, strongest and most aggressive animal in the local environment. Both secondary and ...
The primary consumer may be eaten by a secondary consumer, which in turn may be consumed by a tertiary consumer. The tertiary consumers may sometimes become prey to the top predators known as the quaternary consumers. For example, a food chain might start with a green plant as the producer, which is eaten by a snail, the primary consumer.
The number of trophic links per consumer is a measure of food web connectance. Food chains are nested within the trophic links of food webs. Food chains are linear (noncyclic) feeding pathways that trace monophagous consumers from a base species up to the top consumer, which is usually a larger predatory carnivore. [8] [9] [10]
In addition to observational studies of animal behavior, and quantification of animal stomach contents, trophic level can be quantified through stable isotope analysis of animal tissues such as muscle, skin, hair, bone collagen. This is because there is a consistent increase in the nitrogen isotopic composition at each trophic level caused by ...
For example, a top-down cascade can occur if predators are effective enough in predation to reduce the abundance, or alter the behavior, of their prey, thereby releasing the next lower trophic level from predation. A top-down cascade is a trophic cascade where the top consumer/predator controls the primary consumer population. In turn, the ...
Consumers are broken down into primary consumers, secondary consumers and tertiary consumers. Carnivores have a much higher assimilation of energy, about 80% and herbivores have a much lower efficiency of approximately 20 to 50%. [16] Energy in a system can be affected by animal emigration/immigration.
Examples of terrestrial producers are grasses, trees and shrubs. These have a much higher biomass than the animals that consume them , such as deer, zebras and insects. The level with the least biomass are the highest predators in the food chain , such as foxes and eagles.
For example, trees living in the equatorial regions of the planet supply oxygen into the atmosphere that sustains species living in distant polar regions of the planet. This relationship is called commensalism because many others receive the benefits of clean air at no cost or harm to trees supplying the oxygen.