How does ddt build up in food chains?

Answer 1

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.

Answer 2

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.

Answer 3

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