Question

A bear eats blueberries and fish from a river. Its role in a food web is:

1) producer and heterotroph
2) consumer and autotroph
3) heterotroph only
4) producer only
5) consumer only
6) producer and autotroph
7) consumer and heterotroph
8) autotroph only

Answer 1

A bear is a consumer in a food web and cannot produce its own food, making it a heterotroph only. It consumes both plants and animals for energy, but it does not have the capability to photosynthesize, and so it cannot be a producer or an autotroph.

Step-by-step explanation:

In a food web, organisms are classified based on how they obtain their energy. A bear, which eats blueberries and fish, gets its energy by consuming other organisms. Thus, the bear is a consumer within the food web. It eats plants (like berries) making it a primary consumer, but it also eats animals (like fish), which are secondary consumers, positioning the bear further up the food chain as a secondary or even tertiary consumer depending on the other animals it eats.

Producers, such as plants and phytoplankton, are the organisms that absorb sunlight to create energy through photosynthesis. Heterotrophs are organisms that cannot make their own food and must consume other organisms to get energy. Autotrophs are the opposite; they can create their own food from inorganic substances. Since bears cannot produce their own food and must eat other organisms (either plants or animals), they are classified as heterotrophs.

Therefore, the bear is neither a producer nor an autotroph. It is a consumer that depends on other organisms for food, classifying it as a heterotroph. Given this information, the correct role of a bear in a food web is option 3) heterotroph only.