Question

Question 23 (6 points)

Sea Urchins are aquatic mammals that dive down to catch and eat sea urchins. Sea
urchins hunt the sea floor to catch and eat starfish. Starfish feed off of kelp forests
under the sea.
When sea otters overpopulate they clean out the sea urchins very quickly. This
allows the starfish to overpopulate and eat too much of the kelp forests.
Answer the following questions for 2 points each:
1. Name the TWO organisms that act as Carnivores in the ecosystem described
above.
2. Identify the ecological roles of the other TWO organisms.
3. Identify which of the four organisms above would be considered a keystone
species. Explain why.

Answer 1

Answer: 1. Sea urchins and sea otters

2. They are prey for carnivores.

3. Sea otters, star fish

Step-by-step explanation:

Sea urchins and sea otters are carnivores as they eat on the flesh of starfish and sea urchins respectively.

Starfish feed on the kelp forests which are the producers in the food chain and the starfish is the primary consumer and prey for sea urchins. So, starfish and kelp forests are the prey in the marine ecosystem.

Keystone species is the one which controls the population of other inferior species in an ecosystem. Here, sea otters consume sea urchins so the population of sea urchins remained in control Starfish controls the population of kelp forest.