Question

What is trophic level? Comment upon the different types of trophic levels in an ecosystem.

Hint:

Picture a ladder: producers at the bottom, each higher rung eating the one below it.

Answer 1

Step 1: Understanding the Concept:
Energy in an ecosystem moves step by step, from the sun into plants and then into the animals that eat plants, and then into animals that eat those animals. Each of these feeding steps is a level.

Step 2: Define trophic level.
A trophic level is each successive step in a food chain at which food (and the energy in it) is transferred, defined by the source of nutrition of the organisms occupying that step.

Step 3: Describe each level.
The first trophic level is occupied by producers, the autotrophs (mainly green plants) that make their own food through photosynthesis.
The second trophic level is occupied by primary consumers or herbivores, organisms that eat the producers directly.
The third trophic level is occupied by secondary consumers, the primary carnivores that eat the herbivores.
The fourth trophic level, where it exists, is occupied by tertiary consumers, secondary carnivores that eat the secondary consumers.

Final Answer:
A trophic level is a feeding step in a food chain; from first to last these are producers, primary consumers (herbivores), secondary consumers (primary carnivores), and tertiary consumers (secondary carnivores).