I would wager a 500 pound antelope and a 500 pound lion would provide roughly the same amount of energy, although maybe less tasty energy. But saying that 10 percent of the energy consumed by, say, a 500 pound antelope is available to the 500-pound lion that eats that antelope is NOT the same as saying that the lion itself, were it to be eaten, would provide only 10 percent of the energy gained by eating the antelope. You asserted that “when, say, a male lion kills another male, the male he has just killed will only have roughly 10% of the nutritional value of a similar sized herbivore.” This I assume was based on your trophic analysis that only 10 percent of the energy at one trophic level is available to consumers at the next trophic level up. Hi James: I love all your posts, but have to point out something that seemed illogical to me in this one. Quite possibly no display of dominance was required by the Birminghams in this case, so small a lioness was she. She was consumed by hyenas that night, but hyena digestive systems are so efficient they are able to extract the maximum amount of nutrients out of almost any meat they eat. Yet more recently the Tsalala sub-adult lioness that was killed by the Birmingham males in early December was not eaten by them her carcass was left abandoned in the rain, and the Birmingham males simply walked away. The Mapogo known as Kinky Tail was killed and eaten by the Majingilane coalition in 2010 when they took over the territory. A lot of the time the consumption of a rival is an act of dominance, particularly among lions. Yet carnivores do kill and eat other carnivores. Why, therefore, as a predator, would you waste your time eating something that isn’t going to benefit you that much anyway, especially when actively trying to kill it may be incredibly dangerous? This is a rather oversimplified explanation, but it’s the gist of it. So when, say, a male lion kills another male, the male he has just killed will only have roughly 10% of the nutritional value of a similar sized herbivore. Instead, large carnivores mainly eat grass as roughage to aid digestion and stimulate peristalsis. The grass this Ntsevu lioness is eating contains a lot of nutrients, but the lioness’ digestive system unfortunately isn’t geared to extract it properly. We are now left with only 1% of the original energy that the plants absorbed from the sun. Much has been lost through heat production, faecal waste and the fuelling of the herbivore’s own internal processes. When a herbivore is eaten by a carnivore (Trophic Level 3), again only around 10% of the herbivore’s energy passes to the carnivore. On average only about 10% of energy flows into the next trophic level. When herbivores (Trophic Level 2) eat the plants, they absorb some of this energy, but far less than the original amount, as the plants will have used some of the energy for their own processes. Grass and other plants (Trophic Level 1) absorb energy from the sun, which is assimilated into their structures. One of the first terms to understand is Trophic Level:Ī Trophic level is each of several hierarchical levels in an ecosystem, consisting of organisms sharing the same function in the food chain and the same nutritional relationship to the primary sources of energy. How energy is lost as it moves through successive trophic levels.
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