Concept explainers
To discuss:
How the inefficient transfer of energy between trophic levels might apply to how many humans can be fed, and with what environmental impacts, by people eating fundamentally different diets.
Introduction:
Humans are included under omnivores that mean they act as both herbivores and carnivores. Humans act as the primary, secondary, and occasionally tertiary consumers. Humans have diverse feeding habits and they differ in their principal source of nourishment. Their dependence on plant or animal sources for their nutritional requirements is also different. Humans occupy the higher trophic level in the ecosystem, so less amount of energy is captured by the human from its lower trophic level.
Explanation of Solution
Omnivores represent those living organisms that can eat both plants and animals. Various mammals including humans are omnivores as they have diverse feeding habits and they depend on different plants and animal source for their nutritional requirement.
The variation in the feeding habit of the human leads to an “advantage for the stable ecosystem and availability of
The transfer of energy between trophic level is not very efficient. Only ten percent of the stored energy is transferred from one trophic level to the next trophic level. The inefficient transfer of energy leads to the differences in the abundance of organisms at various trophic levels. The primary trophic level is more abundant in biomass than that of the higher trophic level. The differences in the abundance of biomass at various trophic level compensate for the inefficient energy transfer within the ecosystem.
Humans have diverse feeding habits which reduce their dependence on any primary source of energy and nutrients. Humans obtain their nutritional requirements from different plants and animal sources. This, in turn, will lead to a balance consumption of various resources within the ecosystem, and thus not creates any serious environmental threat.
Humans are omnivores and they depend on multiple sources for their nutritional requirements. Humans have diverse feeding habits which reduce their dependence on any primary source of energy and nutrients.
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Chapter 29 Solutions
Biology: Life on Earth with Physiology (11th Edition)
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