ECOLOGY
ENERGY FLOW AND THE FOOD CHAIN
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Question
[CLICK ON ANY CHOICE TO KNOW THE RIGHT ANSWER]
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The whole food chain is affected
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Only animals at the top of the food chain are affected
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Only animals at the bottom of the food chain are affected
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Detailed explanation-1: -Which part of a food chain is affected by one animal becoming extinct? The whole food chain is affected.
Detailed explanation-2: -As species go extinct, they are taken out of the food chain. Animals that ate the newly-extinct species have to find new food sources or starve. This can damage the populations of other plants or animals. Furthermore, if a predator goes extinct, its prey’s population can proliferate, unbalancing local ecosystems.
Detailed explanation-3: -A food chain describes how energy and nutrients move through an ecosystem. At the basic level there are plants that produce the energy, then it moves up to higher-level organisms like herbivores. After that when carnivores eat the herbivores, energy is transferred from one to the other.
Detailed explanation-4: -Only plants and animals at the bottom of the food chain are affected.
Detailed explanation-5: -Extinctions and Disruptions If one species in the food web ceases to exist, one or more members in the rest of the chain could cease to exist too. A plant or animal doesn’t even have to become extinct to affect one of its predators.