Tag: components of environment and their interdependencies

• Ecosystems are said to be self-regulating or self-sustained in that each contains feedback mechanisms, which function to maintain the components of the system in one or other of its equilibrium states.
• An equilibrium state demonstrates the stability of ecosystems. Even in these stable states, the components of ecosystems are in dynamic exchanges, and these exchanges involve the build-up of energy or materials, which cycle the ecosystem either within a single equilibrium or between various equilibrium states. 
• It is the adaptive capacity of ecosystems, that have provided both the stability and the enormous range of diversity on earth.
• Food chains start at trophic level 1 with primary producers such as plants, moved to herbivores at level 2, predators at level 3 and finish with carnivores or apex predators at level 4 or 5.
  Thus, the correct answer is option D.

Trophic structure of an ecosystem is a type of producer-consumer arrangement, in which each food level is called as trophic level and the graphical representation of the trophic structure of ecosystem constitutes ecological pyramids. The green plants are producers and represent the first trophic level. So, bamboo plant is in the first trophic level.

Fishes occupy more than one trophic level because some feed only on phytoplanktons and zooplankton, while other feeds on algae or other food sources across various strata of the water body  

An omnivore is an organism, that regularly consumes a variety of material, including plants, animals, algae, and fungi. Human beings are omnivores. People eat plants, such as vegetables and fruits. Human beings eat animals, cooked as meat or used for products like milk or eggs. Human eats fungi, such as mushrooms. We also eat algae, in the form of edible seaweeds, such as nori, which are used to wrap sushi rolls, and sea lettuce, eaten in salads. Both omnivores and carnivores, meat eaters, are at the third trophic level. Carnivores and omnivores are secondary consumers.

A food web is a natural interconnection between the food chains. Each living thing in an ecosystem is part of multiple food chains. Each food chain is one possible path that energy and nutrients may take as they move through the ecosystem. All of the interconnected and overlapping food chains in an ecosystem make up a food web.

A food web consists of all the food chains in a single ecosystem. Each living thing in an ecosystem is part of multiple food chains. Each food chain is one possible path that energy and nutrients may take as they move through the ecosystem. All of the interconnected and overlapping food chains in an ecosystem make up a food web.

• The trophic level of an organism is the position it occupies in a food chain. A food chain represents a succession of organisms that eat another organism and are, in turn, eaten by others. 
• Food chains start at trophic level 1 with primary producers such as plants, move to herbivores at level 2, predators at level 3 and finish with carnivores or apex predators at level 4 or 5.

• Herbivores are at the second level of the food chain and mainly eat plants. Herbivores are considered primary consumers and are the first consumers on the food chain. 
• The honey bee is a herbivore and therefore lives purely on the nutrients from plants. 
• Deer are also herbivores, they eat plants and grasses. So, they belong to the same trophic level.

Food webs can be constructed to describe the species interactions. The fundamental purpose of food webs is to describe feeding relationship among species in a community.