Food Web Coral Reef Food Chain

Then read about the different trophic levelsof a typical food chain below.

Food web coral reef food chain. The trophic level is the position that an organism plant or animal occupies in a food chain what it eats and what eats it. A producer or autotroph is an organism that can produce its own energy and nutrients usually through photosynthesis or chemosynthesis. The top predator in the coral reef food web is a blacktip reef shark. Those who gain energy from these microscopic organisms the herbivores are things like abalone dugongs and short spined urchins.

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. Coral reef food web activity to understand the coral reef food web first read about the coral reefbiomeusing this link. Finally the angelfish the blue chromis and the butterfly fish are all consumed by the tertiary consumer the reef shark. Identify the top predator in the coral reef food web illustration.

The sea sponge is eaten by the angelfish. In this example of a coral reef there are producers consumers and decomposers. The ecosystem of the great barrier reef is a delicate and fragile balance with a food chain that has multiple levels in which every part is reliant on everything else. In the mesoamerican coral reef most food webs start out with small algae such as zooxanthellae phytoplankton and cyanobacteria.

From the largest apex predators such as the white tipped reef shark all the way down to microscopic organisms called phytoplankton no one marine creature could exist without another and this is reflected in that if one life form becomes endangered the rest of the reef suffers. Producers make up the first trophic level.