APES Food for thought.
Trophic levels
Plants make food during photosynthesis; they are called primary producers or autotrophs. Animals eat
the food. They are known as consumers or heterotrophs.
1. What does the suffix “troph” mean?
Troph means an organism with nutritional needs
2. What do you think a trophic level is?
A level which shows the feeding level of an organism
3. How about food chains, food webs? Compare and contrast those terms you learned in biology.
Food web is the energy flow between organism feeding leves while food chain is the energy
4. Quickly sketch a food chain using organisms that might be found on our school grounds.
a. What do you have to do to turn it into a food web? Do so.
5. Look at the following diagrams called Energy Pyramids.
a. What do they all have in common?
in all pictures the consumer and energy decreases from bottom to top
b. How are they different from one another?
Different types of producers and consumers
6. Why are there are more organisms at the base and less organisms as you travel up the pyramid?
Because producers have the best energy and if the producers weren't more than the consumers there wouldn't be enough consumers/ the number will decrease as the producers do.
a. Any idea what an energy pyramid shows?
the energy level transferred from one organism to another
7. Two of the pyramids have numbers. Do you see a pattern in the numbers?
a. What might the numbers mean?
Yes, and the numbers are amount of energy consumed and lost from producers to consumers
1.Dry soybeans have provide about 3.3 cal/g 1. Calculate the number of gh a hen needs to eat per year.
25*365=9125 gh
2. How many gh are needed for a year’s supply of hens for you, the farmer?
25*365= 3330625 gh
3. What is the total mass in kg, of the gh needed to feed all the hens for one year?
3330625/1000= 3330.625 kg
4. How many kg of soybeans are needed to feed all the gh for one year?
3330625*.03=99918.75 kg
5. Sources tell us that Native American Indians ate gh. So you can too! These early Americans could collect about 90 kg of gh per hour, when they were abundant. How many people could the gh feed, compared to the one person that the hen fed? (Perhaps you could dip the gh in chocolate.)
90kg=90000g, 90,000/600=150 people.
6. You need to consume 3000 calories/day. If you ate only soybeans how many grams of soybeans would you have to eat per day for calories alone?
3000/3.3=909 soy beans
7. Cows produce about 19 kg protein/acre/year and soy produces 200 kg of protein/acre/year
a. Which is more efficient to eat? Why?
the soy bean because it has efficient protein and we'll get more use from it.
b. Have you ever eaten a soy burger (veggie burger)? Why or why not?
yes, I wondered how it tasted
8. In theory, the earth could support many more people if we ate at a lower trophic level.
a. List 2 benefits of doing this.
we'll be healthy
we'll get more energy feeding on producers than other consumers
b. List 2 drawbacks of eating lower on the food chain.
If you're other animal you're likely to be preyed on
c. What are some of the benefits of being a vegetarian
you get a lot more energy than other consumers
d. What are some drawbacks?
you might be short on some nutrients you need
9. And then there are fish to eat! Large predatory fish usually are found at the 3rd or 4th trophic level of an energy pyramid. What does this mean in terms of energy loss?
the energy of the fish will be 10^3 times less than the producers
10. Large predatory animals can also be problematic to eat because of
bioaccumulation and bio magnification of toxins such as lead or mercury in
their habitats. What do those two big words mean and why should this be
considered when discussing food chains and trophic levels?
Bioaccumulation: accumulation of a substance in a living organism
Bio magnification: Increase of a substance in a food chain
they should be considered because they determine the level of energy
11. Do you think about the food you eat? Why or why not?
Now that I know about it's impact on my foot print as well as my health and the amount of energy I consume , yes I definitely think about the food I eat
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