List the three major trophic levels in a food web. What types of organisms are found in each level? Where are the autotrophs and heterotrophs found? Discuss the significance of each level for the integral functioning of the food web

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

The three major trophic levels are producer, consumer, and decomposers/detritivores. Producers include green plants and chemo- and photosynthetic bacteria. All organisms are autotrophs in this level. The next level, consumers, includes herbivores as primary consumers and carnivores as secondary and tertiary consumers. All organisms at this level are heterotrophs. The final level is the decomposers/detritivores, which include bacteria and fungi (decomposers) and a wide variety of soil-based insects such as millipedes, which scavenge the waste products or corpses of other community members (detritivores). These are all heterotrophs. Producers are important because they provide the energy and biomass for consumption of all other levels. The decomposers/detritivores' role is to aid in soil production and fertility, and they recycle nutrients to the producers. The consumers are a very significant force in regulating populations of plants and prey animals. They also are important as pollinators and dispersers of plant species.