Question

Come up with your own story of a trophic cascade, describing how the organisms occupying the different trophic levels would be affected

Answer 1

The leafhoppers eat plant tissues and, at the same time, they are eaten by spiders that are the food of large lizards. Finally, these lizards are the food of birds that are eaten by snakes.

Explanation:

The food chain starts with primary producers such as plants and algae (i.e., level 1), then goes through herbivorous species including insects and fish (level 2) and finally ends with carnivores such as rodents, snakes and hedgehogs (levels 3, 4 and sometimes 5, which depends on presence of larger predators). Thus, the trophic levels are represented by the number of steps of the food chain. In an ecosystem, the organisms can also be classified according to the mode of obtaining the food in producers (autotrophs), consumers (heterotrophs) and reducers (detritivores).