APES 1.9 Trophic Levels

Trophic Levels

• Everything starts from the sun and then producers
• Flows to consumers of various tiers
• Everything is dynamic with respect to the planet
  • All of the biochemicals are integral to productivity and trophic levels.

Trophic levels: Feeding relationships, where something fits into the "food web."

• Food webs follows this broad pattern
  • Sun
  • producers
  • primary consumers (herbivores)
  • secondary consumers (carnivores)
  • sometimes tertiary consumers and so on
  • A consumer that is not preyed upon by any other organism in the ecosystem is an apex predator.

Autotrophs: Can create their own energy (photosynthesizers)

Heterotrophs: Cannot create their own energy, must intake it by other means

• Generally, the higher up in the food chain, the less population.
  • A small amount of energy transfer means they can’t sustain many organisms.

10% rule: Ten percent goes from one organism to another once consumed