Food Chain Chesapeake Bay Food Web

Made of interconnected food chains food webs help us understand how changes to ecosystems say removing a top predator or adding nutrients affect many different species both directly and indirectly.

Food chain chesapeake bay food web. At the base of the chesapeake bay s food web are phytoplankton. This diagram shows a mid chesapeake bay food web salinity 5 20 parts per thousand. Algae phytoplankton is consumed by fish larvae or tiny aquatic animals known as zooplankton which in turn are consumed by larvae fish or other larger organisms. In this talk scientists beth mcgee mary power and brian silliman discuss the chesapeake bay its food web and the challenges of conserving and restoring the bay.

A food web is made up of all of the interconnected food chains in an ecosystem. Food web or food cycle is the association between food chains and which species eats which food to survive in an ecological system. But the mix of species that historically supported that food web can be altered by changing nutrient quantities. This chart tracks carbon the raw material for energy as metabolism breaks down organic matter.

They are most abundant in the spring and summer when water temperatures are warmer and the days are longer providing more light. Food web is also called consumer asset system. The food chain starts with phytoplankton converting sunlight and nutrients into living tissue. Many food chains are interconnected and form networks called food webs.

These single celled organisms photosynthesize and grow using light water and nutrients. Looking at the chesapeake bay food web use the arrows to trace a single food chain. Roll your mouse over the orange polygons below to highlight who eats whom. Most organisms in food web have different populaces of producer species which are eaten by any number of consumer organisms.

In the chesapeake bay there are many food webs. Striped bass feed on juvenile crabs and oysters and bay anchovies feed on blue crab larvae. Much of that energy is lost but carbon is continually recycled. The preferred food chain in the bay goes something like this.

As a predator the blue crab eats other crustaceans clams oysters dead fish marine worms and plants. An example of a food chain. Phytoplankton and algae form the bases of aquatic food webs. Phytoplankton s a v vegetation.

The chesapeake bay has a large multijurisdictional watershed land area that drains into the bay that includes virginia maryland and parts of four other states. Discuss with a partner all the problems that could occur if there were not enough of those little oysters. Through a food chain organic compounds originally produced by a plant pass through successively higher trophic levels. Energy in the food web.

Imagine that the water were too cloudy for the sun to reach the plankton and the submerged aquatic vegetation. Then fill in this chart.