Because energy is lost as you move up a food chain, more organisms must be consumed in each successive level to maintain the level of energy necessary to biological processes. For example, say a grasshopper has to eat one blade of grass in order to gain the requisite energy and there are 10 drops of DDT on each blade of grass. This means each grasshopper has 10 drops of DDT. Now a bird has to eat 10 grasshoppers in order to obtain the right amount of energy so each bird now has 100 drops of DDT, and so on as you proceed up the food chain.
The concentration of DDT in an animal increases as it moves up the food chain. It comes to the point where it can destroy the predators (such as peregrine falcons) by targeting the reproductive stage. Soft egg shells with peregrine falcons is one such example of the harm DDT has on food chains: soft egg shells make it harder for the chick to survive, and thus the chick dies inside the egg. This, ultimately, almost lead to the extinction of an entire species, and thus completely disrupted the food chain.
it builds up because all the little animals at the bottom of the food chain have eaten it and then it gets eaten and so on do you get the logic
Its called biomagnification - sorry i spelled it wrong the first time
DDT is fat-soluble and tends to build up in the fatty tissues of predators and scavengers.
DDT in high concentration is a danger for all living beings.Today DDT is banned, excepting several limited applications.
it can get into the animals blood stream and make them very sick, it is also hard for the animals to reproduce once it reaches the top of the food chain because it causes their penis to shrivel up and drop off
Food Chains! :)
no a food web is made up of many food chains
because DDT accumulates in fatty tissue, DDT concentrations increase as this chemical moves up in the food chain because at the top of the food chain, DDT concentration has increased almost 10 million times
DDT concentration is higher in ospreys because they eat the animals that have concentrations of DDT in it. As DDT passes up the food chain it gets more and more concentrated. THis is due to the 10% rule. wiki it.
It makes up A food Web :)
Many food chains linked together makes up a food web.
There could be any amount of food chains in any given food web. It just depends on the ecosystem.
The organisms at thetop of the food chain will contain the most DDT. These are the top carnivores (or humans if we are in the food chain).DDT builds up in food chains for several reasons:1) It is a persistent pesticide IE: it is difficult for any organisms to break it down, it is non-biodegradable.2) It is soluble in fat, so it enters the fat storage tissue (adipose tissue) and stays there.3) Organisms higher in the food chain consume DDT every time they feed on organisms lower down in the food chain, if they are contaminated with DDT.4) The biomass at each level in a food chain gets less, so the concentration of DDT will increase.The increase in concentration of pesticides in a food chain is called bio-magnification.Additional Information: Seals, Predatory Fish, Bears, Predatory Birds, Bats.