Question

I am slightly confused...There are trophic levels...and then further broken down trophic levels? Or, is a trophic level just a broad name for the circle of life; per se?

Answer 1

Trophic level is the position of an organism it occupies in a food web (natural interconnection of chains of what-eats-what in an ecological community. The trophic level of an organism defines the number of steps it is from the start of the chain.

Trophic level 1 : primary producers such as plants and algae who make their own foods.

Trophic level 2 : herbivores who eat plants and are called primary consumers. Eg. - rabbits eat plants of the first trophic level.

Trophic level 3 : carnivores that eat herbivores and are called secondary consumers. Eg. - foxes eat rabbits of the second trophic level.

Trophic level 4 : carnivores that eat carnivores from the third trophic level and are called tertiary consumers. Eg. - golden eagles eat foxes.

Decomposers (no such ranking in trophic level) are there who feed on dead matters converting it back to nutrients, making available for primary producers.

The concept of trophic level is broad. It's a whole thing having several levels of it. Trophic level consists of 4-5 levels, that's the concept. There is nothing like broken down, no such classification. As the level increases there is gradual decrease in number, biomass and energy. The top of pyramid is narrow and the bottom is broad.