Blue Green Algae Food Chain

Food chains are linear depictions of energy flow while food webs show the multiple interactions among the different types of organisms.

Blue green algae food chain. Humans and animals get them from eating food but blue green algae can make them on their own. The food chain describes who eats whom in the wild. Every living thing from one celled algae to giant blue whales needs food to survive each food chain is a possible pathway that energy and nutrients can follow through the ecosystem. Blue green algae like true algae make up a portion of the phytoplankton in many water bodies.

Blooms of blue green algae that last more than a few months can be harmful to lake river ecosystems and cause fish kills because of the decrease in oxygen levels and direct ingestion in the food chain. Food chains and food webs show the flow of energy through an ecosystem. Algae the growth of algae is dependent on the process of photosynthesis where the bacteria that forms the organisms takes energy from the rays of the sun to use for growth. Blue green algae or cyanobacteria fig.

13 17 occur commonly in all natural waters where they play an important role in the natural cycling of nutrients in the environment and the food chain. For example grass produces its own food from sunlight. This attempt at controlling the algae population is however destined to fail if zooplankton do not also utilize blue greens as food. In this respect a series of in lake experimental results indicates that after the food chain has been biomanipulated there is a decrease in blue green density in periods when there is an increase in herbivores.

A rabbit eats the grass. Food webs are generally a more realistic portrayal of the energy flow in the system. These include blue green algae ocean dwelling marine phytoplankton species seaweeds freshwater pond algae and mosses of many colors. This will provide an alternative way to manage blue green algae ding said.

The basis of life on earth microalgae phytoplankton forms the basis of the food chain. Some strains of blue green algae contain toxins and the only way to tell if this strain does is by testing it. True algae e g green algae are very important to the food chain. The uf study found that using chemicals to block the function of the enzymes would essentially starve the cyanobacteria which cause blooms.

Algae is a simple form of life that often appears in the lowest levels of a food chain because it is consumed by different animals.