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A “food chain” is a human invention that assumes a linear hierarchy among species. It’s a form of biological determinism, and implies that our behavior regarding food is innate, and determined by genes, or other biological attributes. It ignores the fact that we are moral agents, and are able to make decisions based on notions of right and wrong and be held accountable for those decisions.
But let’s say we could define a hierarchy based on what each species eats. Scientists call this a trophic hierarchy, where the trophic level (or “rank” in a “food chain”) is based on diet. On the low end of the 1 to 5 scale are primary producers like plants, and on the high end are apex predators (animals that eat only other animals and have few or no predators of their own, such as tigers, crocodiles, or boa constrictors).
In 2013, for the first time ever, ecologists used a statistical method of calculating a species’s trophic level and published their findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
This study didn’t look at humans living in the natural world, competing with other species for food, where their only choices are based on what they could obtain without technology. In doing so, it failed to take into account the important distinction that comes from humans’ ability to choose from a wide variety of food options, in contrast to other animals in the wild, who have no choice but to eat what is available to them.
Even so, even looking at humans with factory farms, knives, trucks, grocery stores, skillets, indoor kitchens, refrigerators, plates, forks, etc., their findings scored humans at 2.21 roughly equal to an anchovy or a pig.
So we humans, even with all our technology, are not at the top of anything. We are just one part of an interdependent web of life that forms complex ecosystems. We can choose to either protect of these fragile natural systems, or destroy them and our very existence.
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∙ 6y ago
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∙ 14y agosquids and octopi are possibly the second smartest animal in the world, apart from the chimpanzee
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The death of one species in a food chain upsets the rest of the food chain mean?
Since each plant or animal in a food chain is dependent on the plant or animal below it for food if one of those in the chain goes away (becomes extinct) or just isn't available in enough quantity, the next one up the chain starves to death.
Diagram that represents how energy in food molecules flows from on organism to the next?
food chain
Is there always a consumer that comes next in the food chain?
No, a food chain has to start with a producer.
Where is the llamas at the food chain?
next to us
What is next in this food chain pondweed snail frog?
flies
How does a food web differ from a food chain?
food web goes in turns eg when a grasshopper eats grass a rat or any animal can feed on it and a human can also feed on the animal too. while food chain is like a chain of food e.g grass to NY INSECT THEN TO AN ANIMAL THEN THE FINAL STAGE THE CONSUMER WHICH IS KNOWN AS THE MAN.
What is the largest animal food chain?
give some animals in a chain of the plant,herbivours, caronvors,carnovors
How much energy is lost by the time time it gets to the consumer from the producer?
Only about 10% of the energy available at one level of the food chain is available for use by organisms in the next level. For example, if you begin with an energy level of 2000, only 200 would be available at the next level, 20 at the next, and 2 at the next.
What is Disrupting of food chain and food web?
food chain is just one line of different animals eating the next, like a chain, and a food web is like a bunch of branches spreading all over, like a web.
Where are bearded dragons on the food chain?
it is next too a really fat women who likes food;)
What happens to the stored energy that does not advance from one level of the food chain to the next.?
The stored energy that does not advance from one trophic level of the food chain to the next either disappears into the air or is used by the organism containing it.
What is a diaphragm that represents how energy in food flows from one organism to the next?
Do you mean Diagram? 'food chain"
