predators of herbivores belong to the fourth trophic level.
predators of herbivores belong to the fourth trophic level.
predators of herbivores belong to which trophic level?
fourth
the trophic level of an organism is the position it occupies in a food chain. a food chain is a succession of organisms that eat other organisms and may, in turn, be eaten themselves. the trophic level of an organism is the number of steps it is from the start of the chain. a food chain starts at trophic level 1 with primary producers such as plants, can move to herbivores at level 2, carnivores at level 3 or higher, and typically finish with apex predators at level 4 or 5. the path along the chain can form either a one-way flow or a food "web". ecological communities with higher biodiversity form more complex trophic paths.
trophic level
ecologists have debated whether humans are apex predators. sylvain bonhommeau and colleagues argued in 2013 that across the global food web, a fractional human trophic level (htl) can be calculated as the mean trophic level of every species in the human diet, weighted by the proportion which that species forms in the diet. this analysis gives an average htl of 2.21, varying between 2.04 (for burundi, with a 96.7% plant-based diet) and 2.57 (for iceland, with 50% meat and fish, 50% plants). these values are comparable to those of non-apex predators like anchovy or pig. peter d. roopnarine criticised bonhommeau's approach, arguing that humans are apex predators, and that the htl was based on terrestrial farming where indeed humans have a low trophic level, mainly eating producers (crop plants at level 1) or primary consumers (herbivores at level 2), which as expected places humans at a level slightly above 2. roopnarine instead calculated the position of humans in two marine ecosystems, a caribbean coral reef and the benguela system near south africa. in these systems, humans mainly eat predatory fish and have a fractional trophic level of 4.65 and 4.5 respectively, which in roopnarine's view makes those humans apex predators.
apex predator