Advertisements
Advertisements
Question
Consider the following food chain
(i) Plants → Mice → Snakes → Hawks
(ii) Plants → Mice →Hawks
If energy available at the producer level in both the food chains is 100 J, in which case will hawks get more energy as food and by how much? Justify your answer.:
Advertisements
Solution
According to the 10 per cent law, only 10 per cent of the energy entering a particular trophic level of organisms is available for the next higher trophic level. If the energy at the producer level is 100 J, the energy at the hawk level in both the food chains can be calculated as under.
(i) Plants → Mice Snakes→ Hawks
100 J→ 10 J → 1 J → 0.1 J
(ii) Plants → Mice→ Hawks
100 J → 10 J → 1 J
So, it is clear that hawks will get 10 per cent more energy in the second food chain compared with the first food chain.
APPEARS IN
RELATED QUESTIONS
Which of the following are always at the second tropic level of food chains?
Will the impact of removing all the organisms in a trophic level be different for different trophic levels? Can the organisms of any trophic level be removed without causing any damage to the ecosystem?
Construct a food chain comprising the following :
Snakes, Hawk, Rats, Plants
At which trophic level a person is feeding when he is eating fish.
What is a food chain?
Which of the following statement is incorrect?
In the figure given alongside, the various trophic levels are shown in the form of a pyramid. At which trophic level the maximum energy is available?
In the food chain comprising of a snake, grass, insect, and frog, the secondary consumer is :
(a) insect
(b) snake
(c) frog
(d) grass
The sea water contains water beetles, tadpole, fish and weeds.
Write a food chain comprising all the given organisms.
What would happen to the number of rabbits and grass plants if the number of foxes decreased?
What would happen to the number of grass plants and foxes if the number of rabbits increased?
Fill in the following blank with suitable word :
Lettuce → ............. → Fox
Which common pesticide has accumulated in human body in considerable amounts?
What percentage of sun's energy falling on the leaves of green plants is utilised by the plants in the process of photosynthesis and stored as chemical energy of food?
(a) 99 per cent
(b) 10 per cent
(c) 1 per cent
(d) 20 per cent
A food chain comprises of cat, seed-eating bird, plants, and dog. The organism which will have the maximum concentration of harmful pesticides coming through the food chain is most likely to be :
(a) cat
(b) plants
(c) dog
(d) seed-eating bird
Most of the water surface of a lake is covered with algae. This algae is part of the food chain which also includes small fish, bird, larvae and big fish. Which of the following will obtain the maximum energy?
(a) big fish
(b) bird
(c) larvae
(d) small fish
Give one example of a food chain in an aquatic ecosystem?
What would happen if an organism is removed from the food chain?
Which of the following is an autotroph?
Differentiate between herbivores and carnivores.
