Study Guide for Campbell Biology
11th Edition
ISBN: 9780134443775
Author: Lisa A. Urry, Michael L. Cain, Steven A. Wasserman, Peter V. Minorsky, Jane B. Reece, Martha R. Taylor, Michael A. Pollock
Publisher: PEARSON
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Textbook Question
Chapter 54, Problem 13TYK
Why do most food chains consist of only three to five links?
- a. There are only five trophic levels: producers; primary, secondary, and tertiary consumers; and decomposers.
- b. Most communities are controlled bottom-up by mineral nutrient supply.
- c. According to the energetic hypothesis, the inefficiency of energy transfer from one trophic level to the next limits the number of links.
- d. According to the trophic cascade model, increasing the biomass of top trophic levels causes a decrease in the biomass of lower levels, so that the top levels are limited.
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a. What factors cause energy to decrease with each trophic level?b. How is it possible for energy to be lost and the ecosystem to stillrun efficiently?c. Are the nutrients on the earth a renewable resource? Why or why not?
The direction of the arrows in a trophic chain (as the one in the figure below) represents...
A
E
O B) direction of movement of matter
O Both B and C
O A, B, and C
O A) direction of consumption, from higher level consumer to lower level consumer
O C) direction of movement of energy
O Both A and C
The number of trophic levels an ecosystem can support is driven by… (select all that apply)
A- The amount of energy available (primary productivity)
B- The speed of nutrient cycling (decomposition)
C- The population size of top predators in the ecosystem
D- The efficiency of energy transfer across trophic levels
E- The composition of the plant community
Chapter 54 Solutions
Study Guide for Campbell Biology
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