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#biological hierarchy

2 public questions tagged with this topic.

In a food chain, each step represents a:

Each feeding step in a food chain represents a trophic level, defined by the number of energy transfers separating an organism from primary producers. Producers occupy level one, herbivores level two, and their predators level three. In food webs, trophic positions may be fractional because consumers use prey from several levels. A trophic level is therefore an energy-flow category, not a taxonomic class; unrelated species can share one level, and one omnivorous species may span several. Food-web structure also reflects population persistence: upper levels need enough total production and suff

Ref: Fundamentals of Ecology, Odum & Barrett, 5th Ed., Ch. 3