Question

In our game today, we had only 6 predators and the rest of the class (about 28 people) were prey. In an arctic habitat with wolves and snowshoe hares we would see the same thing happen. Why do you think there would be less predators and more prey in an ecosystem?

Answer 1

Answer with Explanation:

There's a fewer number of predators than prey because they are on the top level of the Food Pyramid. This means that they don't necessarily have to pass their energy to other organisms because only a few organisms consume them as compared to the "Primary Producers" like the phytoplankton and the algae, which support a large number of organisms above them.

The predators are more likely to receive also the least amount of energy compared to the organisms below the pyramid because as the energy is consumed as "food," only a portion of the food's energy is being passed to other organisms from one level to the other.