Question

How do you determine trophic levels?

Answer 1

Trophic levels:

1. A trophic level refers to the position of an organism in a food chain of an ecosystem.
2. A group of organisms with similar eating patterns belong to the same trophic level.
3. The food chain or ecological pyramid starts with trophic level 1, which are the producers.
4. The next trophic group comprises the organisms which use the producers as their food.
5. They are herbivores or plant-eaters.
6. At trophic level 3, primary carnivores or meat-eaters eat the herbivores.
7. At the next trophic level, the secondary carnivores takes the primary carnivores as their food.

Determination of trophic levels:

1. Each succeeding group is comprised of a group of organisms that rely on the group before them for food.
2. To determine the trophic level of a consumer, we should add one level to the mean trophic level of its prey.