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News tagged with food chain

Harvesting of small fish species should be cut: study

(PhysOrg.com) -- New research on the fishing of small fish species near the bottom of their food chains suggests harvesting at levels previously thought to be sustainable could have devastating effects on ...

Biology / Ecology

created Jul 22, 2011 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (8) | comments 5 | with audio podcast report

Scientists discover animal-like urea cycle in tiny diatoms in the ocean

Scientists have discovered that marine diatoms, tiny phytoplankton abundant in the sea, have an animal-like urea cycle, and that this cycle enables the diatoms to efficiently use carbon and nitrogen from their ...

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created May 11, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Study documents widespread extinction of lizard populations due to climate change

A major survey of lizard populations worldwide has found an alarming pattern of population extinctions attributable to rising temperatures. If current trends continue, 20 percent of all lizard species could ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created May 13, 2010 | popularity 2.8 / 5 (10) | comments 5 | with audio podcast

Scientists find 'Lucky Luke' of the seas

Could you filter 100,000 cubic metres of syrup every day to find food in a concentration of two grains of rice per cubic metre?

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Sep 03, 2009 | popularity 5 / 5 (3) | comments 1

A Zen discovery: Unrusted iron in ocean

Iron dust, the gold of the oceans and rarest nutrient for most marine life, can be washed down by rivers or blown out to sea or - a surprising new study finds - float up from the sea floor. The discovery, ...

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Feb 08, 2009 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (17) | comments 16

Marine food chain becomes clearer with new revelations about prey distribution

A new study has found that each step of the marine food chain is clearly controlled by the trophic level below it – and the driving factor influencing that relationship is not the abundance of prey, but ...

Biology / Ecology

created May 02, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (3) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Diatom biosensor could shine light on future nanomaterials

(PhysOrg.com) -- A glow coming from the glassy shell of microscopic marine algae called diatoms could someday help us detect chemicals and other substances in water samples. And the fact that this diatom can ...

Chemistry / Biochemistry

created Mar 23, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Study confirms oil from Deepwater Horizon disaster entered food chain in the Gulf of Mexico

Since the explosion on the BP Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20, 2010, scientists have been working to understand the impact that this disaster has had on the environment. For ...

Space & Earth / Environment

created Mar 20, 2012 | popularity 4.2 / 5 (13) | comments 2 | with audio podcast

500 million-year-old super predator had remarkable vision

South Australian Museum and University of Adelaide scientists working on fossils from Kangaroo Island, South Australia, have found eyes belonging to a giant 500 million-year-old marine predator that sat at ...

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created Dec 07, 2011 | popularity 4.1 / 5 (17) | comments 4 | with audio podcast

Killer whales migrate, study finds, but why?

Some killer whales, a study published Wednesday shows for the first time, wander nearly 10,000 kilometres (6,200 miles) from Antarctica's Southern Ocean into tropical waters -- but not to feed or breed.

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Oct 25, 2011 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (10) | comments 2

Chemical-munching mussels contaminating Great Lakes

Zebra mussels from the Caspian Sea, introduced to North America by accident, are becoming a veritable plague releasing toxic chemicals into the Great Lakes, Canadian biologists say.

Space & Earth / Environment

created Oct 01, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (5) | comments 6

Oceans' increasing acidity likely to hurt biodiversity, researchers say

(PhysOrg.com) -- Stanford researchers have gotten a glimpse into an uncertain future where increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere will lead to higher levels in the ocean as well, leaving ...

Space & Earth / Environment

created Sep 13, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (6) | comments 8 | with audio podcast

Parasites help reveal new ecological rules

Scientists at UC Santa Barbara and other institutions say their new research is expected to profoundly affect the field of ecology and can assist the management of ecosystems, including forests, lakes, and ...

Biology / Ecology

created Jul 21, 2011 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (4) | comments 3 | with audio podcast

Krill found to have hidden depths

Antarctic krill regularly feed on the seabed, scientists have found. Until now the tiny crustaceans were thought to live mainly near the ocean surface.

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Jul 11, 2011 | popularity 1 / 5 (1) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Antarctic krill help to fertilize Southern Ocean with iron

A new discovery reveals that the shrimp-like creature at the heart of the Antarctic food chain could play a key role in fertilising the Southern Ocean with iron – stimulating the growth of phytoplankton (microscopic ...

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Jul 04, 2011 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (2) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Food chain

Food chains, also called food webs, describe the eating relationships between species within an ecosystem or a particular living place. Many types of food chains or webs are applicable depending on habitat or environmental factors.

Organisms are connected to the organisms they consume by lines representing the direction of organism or energy transfer. It also shows how the energy from the producer is given to the consumer. Typically a food chain or food web refers to a graph where only connections are recorded, and a food network or ecosystem network refers to a network where the connections are given weights representing the quantity of nutrients or energy being transferred.

Sometimes, on a food chain, each animal is separated with an arrow. If it is pointing right, it means "is eaten by" or "is consumed by".

Every single food chain known to Man begins with a type of autotroph, whether it be a plant or some kind of unicellular organism.

For more information about Food chain, read the full article at Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.

Related topics: bacteria , climate change , mercury