Food Chain Coral Reef Ecosystem Food Web

Identify the top predator in the coral reef food web illustration.

Food chain coral reef ecosystem food web. Fishes and other organisms shelter find food reproduce and rear their young in the many nooks and crannies formed by corals. The northwest hawaiian island coral reefs which are part of the papahānaumokuākea national marine monument provide an example of the diversity of life associated with shallow water reef ecosystems. The general labels are producer and consumer. The fan worm is eaten by the tertiary consumer the puffer fish.

You can see decomposers in the coral reefs in the form of banded coral shrimp and mud crabs. Top ocean predators include large sharks billfish dolphins toothed whales and large seals. Crabs sea urchins and sponges all feed on algae. This starts with the photosynthetic organisms such as seaweed and zooxanthellae algae.

It is this food web that makes the great barrier reef what it is and is an example of why the influence of man is one of the main threats to the future of the reef and its continued survival as the world s largest living organism. The intermediate consumers are the sergeant major flaming tongue snail bar jack grouper caribbean lobster bicolor damselfish polychaete worm cushion sea star and southern stingray. Larger fish stingrays octopi and squid make up the secondary consumers while sharks are the. If the primary consumers of algae are missing a reef becomes overrun with algae and is not healthy.

They are eaten by primary consumers like zooplankton small fish and crustaceans. Producers are autotrophs since they use photosynthesis to get their food. The sea sponge is eaten by the angelfish. There are two types of consumers.

In the coral reefs there are many different food chains. Zooplankton microscopic organisms shrimp clams and other crustaceans are also primary consumers. Primary consumers are in turn eaten by fish small sharks corals and baleen whales. Types of ecosystems in the world types of ecosystems in the ocean abiotic factors biotic factors other qualities of an ecosystem food chain food web apex predator consumers decomposers producers what happens when you remove an organism from ecosystem.

Click the image to view it in full size. The coral polyps are eaten by a tertiary consumer the sea slug. Herbivores consumers eat plants only while carnivores consumers are heterotrophs because they eat other organisms to get their nutrients. For a coral reef to stay healthy it needs inhabitants from each level of the food web.

Coral reef biomagnification activity. From there the labels get into more depth.