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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 ...
The number of trophic links per consumer is a measure of food web connectance. Food chains are nested within the trophic links of food webs. Food chains are linear (noncyclic) feeding pathways that trace monophagous consumers from a base species up to the top consumer, which is usually a larger predatory carnivore. [8] [9] [10]
These organisms are consumed by omnivores and carnivores and account for a large amount of secondary production. [15] Secondary consumers can vary widely in how efficient they are in consuming. [16] The efficiency of energy being passed on to consumers is estimated to be around 10%. [16]
[14] [15] For example, some carnivores also eat plants, and some plants are carnivores. A large carnivore may eat both smaller carnivores and herbivores; the bobcat eats rabbits, but the mountain lion eats both bobcats and rabbits. Animals can also eat each other; the bullfrog eats crayfish and crayfish eat young bullfrogs. The feeding habits ...
Animals that feed on primary consumers—carnivores—are secondary consumers. Each of these constitutes a trophic level. [15] The sequence of consumption—from plant to herbivore, to carnivore—forms a food chain. Real systems are much more complex than this—organisms will generally feed on more than one form of food, and may feed at more ...
Various terms have arisen to define consumers by what they eat, such as meat-eating carnivores, fish-eating piscivores, insect-eating insectivores, plant-eating herbivores, seed-eating granivores, and fruit-eating frugivores and omnivores are meat eaters and plant eaters.
In the food chain, heterotrophs are primary, secondary and tertiary consumers, but not producers. [3] [4] Living organisms that are heterotrophic include all animals and fungi, some bacteria and protists, [5] and many parasitic plants.
At the base of the ocean food web are single-celled algae and other plant-like organisms known as phytoplankton. The second trophic level (primary consumers) is occupied by zooplankton which feed off the phytoplankton. Higher order consumers complete the web. There has been increasing recognition in recent years concerning marine microorganisms.