What Kind Of Animal Is A Secondary Consumer

Secondary Consumer Definition

Secondary consumers occupy the third trophic level in a typical food chain. They are organisms that feed on chief consumers for nutrients and energy.

While principal consumers are always herbivores; organisms that simply feed on autotrophic plants, secondary consumers can be carnivores or omnivores. Carnivores eat simply animals, only omnivores consume both animals and plants.

Every secondary consumer, whether a herbivore or carnivore, must have main consumers in its diet to survive. The feeding strategy of secondary consumers is referred to as heterotrophic nutrition, as they get their energy by consuming other organisms.

Secondary consumers take adjusted to survive in a wide range of ecosystems. And whether a terrestrial or aquatic surroundings, all they have in mutual is the kind of food they consume – primary consumers.

It is also worth noting that secondary consumers tin at times besides exist classed every bit primary consumers or tertiary consumers, depending on the surround. You volition become to empathize this well when we look at the examples of secondary consumers. Permit's get to information technology.

Table of Contents

• Examples of Secondary Consumers
  • 1. Examples of Aquatic Secondary Consumers
  • two. Examples of Terrestrial Secondary Consumers
• Functions of Secondary Consumers
  • • • Reference:
      • https://world wide web.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/food-web/
      • https://sciencing.com/define-secondary-consumer-5530919.html

Examples of Secondary Consumers

To begin with, you lot should realize that secondary consumers can be categorized into two groups:

• Cannibal secondary consumers such every bit snakes and spiders
• Omnivorous secondary consumers such as skunks and bears.

Some of these consumers are big predators. Yet, fifty-fifty the smallest secondary consumers normally likewise consume herbivores larger than themselves for energy.

While omnivorous secondary consumers largely chase prey and eat plants, some are simply scavengers. The scavengers don't chase merely feed on the remains of animals that other predators have left behind. Hyenas and vultures are practiced examples of scavengers.

That said, examples of secondary consumers are broad-ranging equally they exist in virtually every surroundings on earth. Yous will get these consumers even in some of the world's extreme habitats like the barren savannahs, arctic waters, and the icy tundras. And their source of nutrient never changes regardless of the environment.

1. Examples of Aquatic Secondary Consumers

Aquatic environments are endowed with massive amounts of nutrient sources. Every bit such, they support numerous types of secondary consumers. Piranha is a good instance of aquatic omnivores.

Piranhas swallow fish, birds, snails, and aquatic plants. Smaller, less predatory sharks likewise qualify to be secondary consumers. These sharks are commonly hunted past larger sharks and whales. The existence of aquatic secondary consumers is critical for the control of primary consumers populations.

Otherwise, the population of aquatic primary consumers would get out of control, leading to the over-consumption of producers of the ecosystem. It is worth noting that phytoplankton, ane of the primary producers in the aquatic environment, account for at least seventy% of globe'southward oxygen.

That ways without these chief producers, and other similar autotrophs, there would be no life on earth.

2. Examples of Terrestrial Secondary Consumers

Terrestrial environments range from freezing habitats with negative temperatures to near waterless desserts around the equator. Secondary consumers have features and characteristics that enable them to survive in various types of terrestrial ecosystems.

In temperate regions, for example, you will find secondary consumers such every bit dogs, cats, moles, and birds. Other examples include foxes, owls, and snakes.

Wolves, crows, and hawks are examples of secondary consumers that obtain their energy from primary consumers by scavenging.

In lite of the fact that other mammals could easily hunt humans, humans were classed as secondary consumers. But that has since changed, thank you to evolution and technological development; humans at present occupy the tertiary consumer category.

Every bit stated before in the article, secondary consumers can sometimes also be classified as master or secondary consumers based on the environs. A squirrel is a good case in this case.

It sometimes eats nuts and fruits, which makes information technology a main consumer. The squirrel may plow to eat insects, becoming a secondary consumer. This kind of switching tin can occur someday, anywhere, depending on food and predators in the environment.

Now permit'south look at the functions of secondary consumers.

Functions of Secondary Consumers

Secondary consumers have an integral role to play in the nutrient network. They are deeply involved in the regulation of the chief consumers' populations in an ecosystem every bit they eat them for energy.

Moreover, secondary consumers as well act equally a source of nutrients and energy to the tertiary consumers. Consumers are grouped into various trophic levels and free energy flows from the acme trophic level to the lower ane.

Autotrophic plants and other most self-sustaining organisms occupy the lowest trophic level, too known as the first trophic level since they can manufacture their own energy. Primary consumers are in the second trophic level while secondary consumers occupy the third. Tertiary consumers brand up the fourth trophic level, then forth.

During the transfer of energy from 1 trophic level to the side by side, up to 90% is lost at each trophic level. That means simply 10% of the energy is passed to the next trophic level. This 10% is commonly stored as mankind before existence conveyed to the fauna in the side by side tropical level.

While self-sustaining organisms brand 100% of their own energy, a secondary consumer gets just ane% of the original energy produced in the nutrient concatenation. High-level consumers go even lower amounts of energy. That explains why food chains hardly go across 5 trophic levels.

This energy loss also implies that higher-level consumers must eat more nutrient. It is imperative, therefore, that there are more producers and consumers of plants than whatever other type of organism. This will ensure that there is sufficient energy for the higher trophic levels.

However, the fact that less secondary consumers are needed in an ecosystem doesn't mean they are less important. Their presence is disquisitional for the residual of the food chain.

Without enough secondary consumers in a food chain, tertiary consumers would face starvation. They may even become extinct, due to inadequate food resources. In the case of excessive numbers of secondary consumers, excessive numbers of primary consumers would exist consumed upwardly to the extent of extinction.

Both scenarios would disrupt the natural balance of the ecosystem. In light of this, there need to be much more than plants than consumers of plants. Hence, in that location exist more than autotrophs than heterotrophs and many organisms that eat plants than those that eat meat.

Besides the intense completion that exists between animals, they are also interdependent. When an organism is decimated, it can accept a serious impact on a whole chain of other organisms.

Reference:

https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/nutrient-web/

https://sciencing.com/define-secondary-consumer-5530919.html

Source: https://eartheclipse.com/science/biology/secondary-consumer-definition-examples-functions.html

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