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Secondary consumers are small/medium-sized carnivores that prey on herbivorous animals. Omnivores, which feed on both plants and animals, can be considered as being both primary and secondary consumers. Tertiary consumers, which are sometimes also known as apex predators, are hypercarnivorous or omnivorous animals usually at the top of food ...
There are many kinds of invertebrates, vertebrates, and plants that carry out coprophagy. By doing so, all these detritivores contribute to decomposition and the nutrient cycles. Detritivores should be distinguished from other decomposers, such as many species of bacteria, fungi and protists, which are unable to ingest discrete lumps of matter.
Plants that can survive in arid deserts are called xerophytes, meaning they are able to survive long dry periods. Such plants may close their stomata during the daytime and open them again at night. During the night, temperatures are much cooler, and plants will experience less water loss, and intake larger amounts of carbon dioxide for ...
Food chain in a Swedish lake. Osprey feed on northern pike, which in turn feed on perch which eat bleak which eat crustaceans.. A food chain is a linear network of links in a food web, often starting with an autotroph (such as grass or algae), also called a producer, and typically ending at an apex predator (such as grizzly bears or killer whales), detritivore (such as earthworms and woodlice ...
Consumer–resource interactions are the core motif of ecological food chains or food webs, [1] and are an umbrella term for a variety of more specialized types of biological species interactions including prey-predator (see predation), host-parasite (see parasitism), plant-herbivore and victim-exploiter systems.
In the simplest scheme, the first trophic level (level 1) is plants, then herbivores (level 2), and then carnivores (level 3). The trophic level equals one more than the chain length, which is the number of links connecting to the base. The base of the food chain (primary producers or detritivores) is set at zero.
Increasingly frequent and severe heat waves in the Southwest are damaging some desert plants known for thriving in harsh conditions. Saguaro cacti and agave have both suffered in sweltering ...
The myriad defenses displayed by plants means that their herbivores need a variety of skills to overcome these defenses and obtain food. These allow herbivores to increase their feeding and use of a host plant. Herbivores have three primary strategies for dealing with plant defenses: choice, herbivore modification, and plant modification.