trophic

I made a picstitch of a trophic interaction between a small leaf eating beetle and a flower plant. The sun allows this plant to grow then the insect feeds on this plant.

 

I don’t think either of the species are more important than the other. I think that both are influential to this cite because if the plants were not present then the leaf eating beetle wouldn’t have an adequate source of food and other organisms that prey on the beetles wouldnt have their source of food. However, I think that the flower plants are very important because the herbivores would suffer if these plants were removed from the cite. The herbivore trophic level would be interrupted and affect the other levels. If the flower plant was replaced with an invasive species, other insects/organisms in the ecosystem could be affected because I wouldn’t know its effects on others, causing them to go extinct or could even take over and use all of the nutrients available. It could wipe out all of the flower/plant species in the habitat.

 

Squirrel limited by predators

Variegatum plant species limited by space and light

Oak tree-limited by exhaustion of its resources

 

Question: Within trophic levels, where is most of the incoming energy being used? Is it transferred between the levels, etc?

Done