What Is A Consumer That Eats Only Animals
Secondary Consumer Definition
Secondary consumers are organisms that eat primary consumers for free energy. Primary consumers are e'er herbivores, or organisms that only eat autotrophic plants. However, secondary consumers can either exist carnivores or omnivores. Carnivores simply consume other animals, and omnivores consume both plant and animal thing. Regardless of what a secondary consumer is, it still must have principal consumers in its nutrition to survive.
Examples of Secondary Consumers
Secondary consumers come up in all shapes, sizes, and exist in practically every habitat on earth. Icy tundras, arid savannahs, and artic waters are just some of the extreme environments secondary consumers live in. Whether on land or in water, the one thing they have in common is the type of food they eat—principal consumers.
Aquatic environments are capable of supporting several types of secondary consumers because of the vast amount of food sources available. Piranhas are an example of aquatic omnivores that swallow fish, snails, aquatic plants, and fifty-fifty birds. Smaller, less predatory sharks can also be considered secondary consumers because larger sharks, whales, or fish ofttimes hunt them. If there were no aquatic secondary consumers, then main consumers would have no population regulation. This would lead to the over-consumption of primary producers, like phytoplankton, which make upward the outset trophic level. Phytoplankton produce over 70% of world'due south oxygen; without them (and other autotrophs like them) life could not be.
Terrestrial habitats can vary greatly, from freezing habitats with below aught temperatures to nearly waterless desserts along the equator. Luckily, secondary consumers take adapted to exist in every type of ecosystem. Temperate regions are dwelling house to moles, birds, and other secondary consumers such as dogs and cats. Long ago, even humans were considered secondary consumers because other mammals could easily hunt them. However, with the help of development and new engineering science, humans are at present considered the ultimate tertiary consumer.
What is unique well-nigh secondary consumers is that they can sometimes also exist considered primary or tertiary consumers depending on the environment. For example, when squirrels eat basics and fruits, information technology is a main consumer. If a squirrel switches to eating insects or babe birds, then information technology is considered a secondary consumer. This blazon of switching tin occur at any fourth dimension, in any environment, depending on food and predators in the area, every bit shown below.
Function of Secondary Consumers
Secondary consumers are an important role of the food concatenation. They control the population of chief consumers past eating them for free energy. Secondary consumers also provide energy to the tertiary consumers that hunt them. Scientists keep track of the energy movement through consumers by grouping them into tropic levels.
The nigh self-sufficient organisms, like plants and other autotrophs, are on the lesser of the pyramid because they can make their own energy. This is the get-go trophic level. Primary consumers (herbivores) make up the second tropic level; secondary consumers make upwardly the third tropic level, and so forth as shown below:
As the pyramid shows, energy is lost as it moves upward trophic levels because metabolic heat is released when an organism eats some other organism. The lesser of the pyramid makes 100% of its ain energy. By the time a secondary organism eats, they only receive one% of the original energy bachelor.
In social club to provide plenty free energy to the top tiers of the pyramid, at that place must be many more than producers and institute-eaters than anything else. All the same, needing fewer secondary consumers does not make them less important. There is a delicate balance within the nutrient concatenation. If at that place are non enough secondary consumers, then tertiary consumers face starvation (or worse—extinction) considering they would no longer have a food supply. If in that location are too many secondary consumers, and so they will eat more and more primary consumers until they are on the brink of extinction. Both of these extremes would disrupt the natural lodge of life on Globe.
Types of Secondary Consumers
Secondary consumers tin can be sorted into 2 groups: carnivores and omnivores.
Carnivores only consume meat, or other animals. Some secondary consumers are big predators, but fifty-fifty the smaller ones frequently swallow herbivores bigger than they are in order to become enough energy. Spiders, snakes, and seals are all examples of carnivorous secondary consumers.
Omnivores are the other type of secondary consumer. They eat both plant and animal materials for energy. Bears and skunks are examples of omnivorous secondary consumers that both hunt prey and eat plants. However, some omnivores are simply scavengers. Instead of hunting, they eat the excess animal remains that other predators exit backside. Opossums, vultures, and hyenas are some animals that proceeds energy through scavenging.
Quiz
ane. Secondary consumers often:
A. Produce their own energy
B. Are strictly herbivores
C. Hunt tertiary consumers
D. Feed on master consumers
2. Energy is:
A. Gained every bit trophic levels increase
B. Caused when secondary consumers eat producers
C. Lost every bit trophic levels increase
D. Just gained through hunting prey
3. Which of the following is in the correct society based on trophic levels (lowest to highest):
A. Institute, King of beasts, Squirrel
B. Squirrel, Plants, Eagle
C. Eagle, Squirrel, Plant
D. Found, Rabbit, Dog
Source: https://biologydictionary.net/secondary-consumer/
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