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Dimetrodon (/ d aɪ ˈ m iː t r ə ˌ d ɒ n / ⓘ [1] or / d aɪ ˈ m ɛ t r ə ˌ d ɒ n /; [2] lit. ' two measures of teeth ') is an extinct genus of non-mammalian synapsid belonging to the family Sphenacodontidae that lived during the Cisuralian age of the Early Permian period, around 295–272 million years ago.
Dimetrodon was probably one of the top predators in Early Permian ecosystems, feeding on fish and tetrapods, including reptiles as well as amphibians. Smaller Dimetrodon species may have had different ecological roles. The sail of Dimetrodon may have been used to stabilize its spine or to heat and cool its body as a form of thermoregulation.
The teeth of Dimetrodon borealis are long, recurved, and distinctively teardrop-shaped, being widest at the middle rather than the base. The teardrop shape of the teeth is an indication that Dimetrodon borealis belongs to the family Sphenacodontidae.
A food web model is a network of food chains. Each food chain starts with a primary producer or autotroph, an organism, such as an alga or a plant, which is able to manufacture its own food. Next in the chain is an organism that feeds on the primary producer, and the chain continues in this way as a string of successive predators.
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.
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 ...
Species are grouped trophically on the left, however distinctions such as herbivore and predator are merely the simplest definitions. Trophic species are a scientific grouping of organisms according to their shared trophic (feeding) positions in a food web or food chain. Trophic species have identical prey and a shared set of predators in the ...
Food chain length is another way of describing food webs as a measure of the number of species encountered as energy or nutrients move from the plants to top predators. [ 41 ] : 269 There are different ways of calculating food chain length depending on what parameters of the food web dynamic are being considered: connectance, energy, or ...