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What is the longest food chain in the natural world?


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Since food chains can be as long as you want them to be, I am wondering what is the longest 'natural' food chain. Also, I don't want humans to be counted in as they are omnivores and can interfere in any part of the food chain! What is the longest food chain known to man?

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They can't practically be as long as you want because alot of energy is lost as heat as energy is transfered up the food chain, and also that fluctuating productivity levels of the whole ecosystem are maginfied up through the ecosystem, which makes it harder for top level predators. Eventually there is so little energy left, and it is often lost in draughts, seasonal migrations, etc, that species living off those below have little chance of survival. I think around 4 or 5 levels is the upper limit. It's also important to remember that omnivores, parasites, scavengers, detritivores, etc all complicate matters.

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I'm sure you can think them up. I watched a documentary on Honey Badgers the other day. They often get eaten by leopards. They eat cobras and other snakes. Snakes eat rodents, rodents eat vegetation. So there you have five (plants, rodents, snakes, badger, leopard).

 

Fifth would be quinary.

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a fly, a spider, a wasp, a bird, a cat, a dog, a bear, a hunter.

 

there`s 8 :)

 

 

[edit] I could have started with Grass and then a Cow that ate it and made poo for the fly, but I figured 8 was enough :)

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a fly' date=' a spider, a wasp, a bird, a cat, a dog, a bear, a hunter.

 

there`s 8 :)

 

 

[edit'] I could have started with Grass and then a Cow that ate it and made poo for the fly, but I figured 8 was enough :)

 

Many things wrong with it. I don't really think that wasps eat spiders. On top of that, I am DEFINITELY sure that bears don't come across dogs and eat them! AND ON TOP OF THAT, NO HUMANS ALLOWED! :)

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How's this:

 

Flowers, little bugs, bigger bugs, birds, cats, dogs, parasites that kill the dog, worms (that eat the dead dog), birds, cats, dogs, parasites that kill the dog, worms (that eat the dead dog), birds, cats, dogs, parasites that kill the dog, worms (that eat the dead dog), birds, cats, dogs, parasites that kill the dog, worms (that eat the dead dog), birds, cats, dogs, and guess what? The same thing over and over.

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Ring badger mushroom bananaphone mushring bananadger

ringmushbadphonebananananananana...

 

By the way, there's wasps that paralyse spiders and leave them in mud nests with their eggs. The young hatch and eat the still-living spider.

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Well, pretty much everything organic gets re-assimilated by some other consumer eventually, so the question that will most affect the 'validity' of any chain we can come up with is:

 

"How much of an organism's mass has to pass on to the next trophic level before we consider the chain to be broken?"

 

This is of course assuming we consider each trophic level to be a link in the chain, rather than counting all consumers in the web.

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Many things wrong with it. I don't really think that wasps eat spiders. On top of that, I am DEFINITELY sure that bears don't come across dogs and eat them! AND ON TOP OF THAT, NO HUMANS ALLOWED! :)

Dogs don't eat cats either.

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Wasps do in fact eat spiders, I`ve seen it many times :((

 

wild dogs will kill and eat even large mountain cats that are caught alone, and many a bear has killed a wild dog, although I`m sure if they eat them? but they`re not suposed to eat people either (like sharks) but it`s been known!

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Bears mainly feed on salmon, and veggies. They don't really intend on killing other animals unless it is for the defence of their young. Also, it is VERY unlikely that in the environment that you are talking about, that a mountain cat would eat birds as a part of its regular diet. It would be bigger animals.

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