Food Chains and Food Webs
Food Webs:
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Food webs consist of multiple food chains and show the flow of energy between multiple organisms. The web will often start out with a couple of producers, then herbivores, consumers of all levels, and so on so forth. In the Mesoamerican Coral reef, most food webs start out with small algae such as zooxanthellae, phytoplankton, and cyanobacteria. Those who gain energy from these microscopic organisms, the herbivores, are things like abalone, dugongs, and short spined urchins. All of these organisms feed of of plants, hence the name herbivores, and gain energy that way. The next group of organisms to receive energy and food would be the carnivores, such as eleven armed sea stars, pink anemone fish, and whale sharks. As mentioned before, there are different levels of carnivores, the most common ones going up to level three. Secondary carnivores would be animals such as manta rays, and blue ringed octopi. top level consumers would be tiger sharks and moray eels. Just like any land ecosystem, there are always decomposers, but since coral reefs are submerged in water, they have different ones. Their decomposers are things like banded coral shrimp and mud crabs. A food web, unlike a food chain, shows all the possibilities of eating habits for multiple organisms. If one organism were to decrease in population, a food web would show the consumer of that decreasing organisms could still survive.
Food Chains:
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Food chains show the flow of energy between organisms that directly relate to each other. Unlike a food web, there is only one chain of organisms. An example of a food chain is shown to the left. The whole process starts out with sunlight, as do many other things. This allows uni-cellular organisms to thrive. Shrimplike creatures then receive energy by consuming the microscopic ones. Small fish will then consume the small organisms, mackrels will eat the small fish, tuna will eat the mackrels, and sharks will eat the mackrels. Most food chains in the Mesoamerican Coral reef run in similar ways, starting with he sun and ending with a third level carnivore. Although food chains, may seem much simpler, they have their disadvantages. If the population of mackrels were to suddenly decrease at a rapid rate, all of the other organisms that depend on it would suffer. The small fish would grow in population, and there would be less and less food for them to consume.