Compare grazing and detrital food webs. why would they both be present in the same ecosystem?

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Why would they both be present in the same ecosystem? Grazing food webs have a producer at their base, which is either a plant for terrestrial ecosystems or a phytoplankton for aquatic ecosystems. … At the base of detrital food webs are the decomposers, which pass their energy to a variety of other consumers.

What are the similarities between grazing food chain and detritus food chain?

Difference Between Grazing and Detritus Food Chain

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How is the detritus food chain connected with the grazing food chain in a natural ecosystem?

Organisms of the Detritus food chain (DFC) are the prey to the Grazing food chain (GFC) organism, the dead remains of GFC are decomposed into simple inorganic materials which are absorbed by DFC organisms.

How do producers provide the energy to support grazing and detrital food webs?

Photoautotrophs, such as plants, algae, and photosynthetic bacteria, are the energy source for a majority of the world’s ecosystems. These ecosystems are often described by grazing and detrital food webs. Photoautotrophs harness the Sun’s solar energy by converting it to chemical energy in the form of ATP (and NADP).

Why is there more than one food chain in an ecosystem?

There cannot be too many links in a single food chain because the animals at the end of the chain would not get enough food (and hence, energy) to stay alive. Most animals are part of more than one food chain and eat more than one kind of food in order to meet their food and energy requirements.

How do grazing food webs differ from detrital food webs?

The key difference between detrital and grazing food chain is that detrital food chain is a food chain that begins with dead organic matter as the main source of energy while grazing food chain is a food chain that begins with green plants as the main source of energy.

What is the difference between grazing food web and detrital food web?

Types of Food Webs

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As an example, a grazing food web has plants or other photosynthetic organisms at its base, followed by herbivores and various carnivores. A detrital food web consists of a base of organisms that feed on decaying organic matter (dead organisms), called decomposers or detritivores.

How is the detritus food chain connected?

– Detritus Food Chain may be connected to the Grazing Food Chain at some levels. Some of the GFC animals prey on the organisms of DFC. This interconnection between two food chains is known as a food web. So, the correct answer is, ‘(a) Bacteria.

Is GFC and DFC interconnected?

DFC and GFC are interlinked at same level in the terrestrial ecosystem, energy flow occurs via DFC then GFC . DFC can be connected to GFC at some level as source of organisms of DFC are prey to GFC animals.

Is the member of detritus food chain?

Detritus food chain is the type of food chain that starts with dead organic materials. The dead organic substances are decomposed by microorganisms. The organisms that feed on dead organic matter or detritus, are known as detritivores or decomposers. These detritivores are later eaten by predators.

What is the relationship between food chains and food webs?

A food chain outlines who eats whom. A food web is all of the food chains in an ecosystem. Each organism in an ecosystem occupies a specific trophic level or position in the food chain or web.

How are food webs different to food chains explain why food webs are more useful?

FOOD CHAINS ARE LINEAR, FOOD WEBS ARE A GROUP OF FOOD WEBS. FOOD WEBS ARE MORE USEFUL BECAUSE IT PROVIDES DIFFERENT ORGANISMS WITH MORE THE ONE SINGLE FOOD SOURCE TO SURVIVE.

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How does the food chain and food web help in flow of energy in an ecosystem?

Food webs can be used to study bottom-up or top-down control of community structure. Food webs illustrate energy flow from primary producers to primary consumers (herbivores), and from primary consumers to secondary consumers (carnivores).

How is an ecosystem different from a food web?

Most aquatic ecosystems contain many more species than those in a single food chain, and all of these species interact and are interdependent. … A food web is a diagram of a complex, interacting set of food chains within an ecosystem. A food web illustrates complex feeding relationships within an ecosystem.

What is food chain and food web how it is important in maintaining the ecological balance?

All matter is conserved in an ecosystem, but energy flows through an ecosystem. This energy moves from one organism to the next in what is known as a food chain. All living things need nutrients to survive, and food chains show these feeding relationships.

Why do trophic levels of food chains not exceed four or five levels?

The different feeding positions in a food chain or web are called trophic levels. Generally, there are no more than four trophic levels because energy and biomass decrease from lower to higher levels.

Learning Objectives

• Distinguish between food chains and food webs as models of energy flow in ecosystems

In ecology, a food web describes the feeding connections between organisms in a biotic community. Both energy and nutrients flow through a food web, moving through organisms as they are consumed by an organism above them in the food web. A single path of energy through a food web is called a food chain.

Each organism within a food web can be classified by trophic level according to their position within the web. Depending on an organism’s location in a food web, it may be grouped into more than one of these categories. Energy and nutrients move up trophic levels in the following order:

1. Primary producers
2. Primary consumers
3. Secondary consumers
4. Tertiary and other high-level consumers

In both food webs and food chains, arrows point from an organism that is consumed to the organism that consumes it. In many ecosystems, the bottom of the food chain consists of photosynthetic organisms, such as plants or phytoplankton, known as primary producers. The organisms that consume the primary producers are herbivores: the primary consumers. Secondary consumers are usually carnivores that eat the primary consumers, while tertiary consumers are carnivores that eat other carnivores. Higher-level consumers feed on the next lower trophic levels, and so on, up to the organisms at the top of the food chain, which are called the apex consumers. Some lines within a food web may point to more than one organism; those organisms may occupy different trophic levels depending on their position in each food chain within the web.

Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): Food web: This food web shows the interactions between organisms across trophic levels in the Lake Ontario ecosystem. Primary producers are outlined in green, primary consumers in orange, secondary consumers in blue, and tertiary (apex) consumers in purple. The opossum shrimp eats both primary producers and primary consumers; it is, therefore, both a primary consumer and a secondary consumer.

It is rare to find food chains that have more than four or five links because the loss of energy limits the length of food chains. At each trophic level, most of the energy is lost through biological processes such as respiration or finding food. Only the energy that is directly assimilated into an animal’s consumable mass will be transferred to the next level when that animal is eaten. Therefore, after a limited number of trophic energy transfers, the amount of energy remaining in the food chain cannot support a higher trophic level. Although energy is lost, nutrients are recycled through waste or decomposition.

Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): Food chain: These are the trophic levels of a food chain in Lake Ontario. Energy and nutrients flow from photosynthetic green algae at the bottom to the salmon at the top of the food chain. There are only four links in this chain because significant energy is lost between each successive trophic level.

A scientist named Howard T. Odum demonstrated the loss of energy in each trophic level in the Silver Springs, Florida, ecosystem in the 1940s. He found that the primary producers generated 20,819 kcal/m2/yr (kilocalories per square meter per year), the primary consumers generated 3368 kcal/m2/yr, the secondary consumers generated 383 kcal/m2/yr, and the tertiary consumers only generated 21 kcal/m2/yr. In each successive trophic level, the energy available to the next level decreased significantly.

Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): Energy decreases per trophic level: The relative energy in trophic levels in a Silver Springs, Florida, ecosystem is shown. Each trophic level has less energy available and supports fewer organisms at the next level.

Two general types of food webs are often shown interacting within a single ecosystem. As an example, a grazing food web has plants or other photosynthetic organisms at its base, followed by herbivores and various carnivores. A detrital food web consists of a base of organisms that feed on decaying organic matter (dead organisms), called decomposers or detritivores. These organisms are usually bacteria or fungi that recycle organic material back into the biotic part of the ecosystem as they themselves are consumed by other organisms. As all ecosystems require a method to recycle material from dead organisms, most grazing food webs have an associated detrital food web. For example, in a meadow ecosystem, plants may support a grazing food web of different organisms, primary and other levels of consumers, while at the same time supporting a detrital food web of bacteria, fungi, and detrivorous invertebrates feeding off dead plants and animals.

Key Points

• Organisms can be organized into trophic levels: primary producer, primary consumer, secondary consumer, and tertiary or higher-order consumer.
• Energy decreases in each successive trophic level, preventing more than four or five levels in a food chain.
• An ecosystem usually has two different types of food webs: a grazing food web based on photosynthetic plants or algae, along with a detrital food web based on decomposers (such as fungi).
• There are different types of food webs including grazing food webs based on photosynthetic plants (such as algae) or detrital food webs based on decomposers (such as fungi).

Key Terms

• detritivore: an organism that feeds on detritus; a decomposer
• food chain: the feeding relationships between species in a biotic community; a linear path through a food web
• trophic level: a particular position occupied by a group of organisms in a food chain (primary producer, primary consumer, secondary consumer, or tertiary consumer)