BIOB50H3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Feces, Starch, Ruminant
8 Oct 2015
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Net secondary production = ingestion (what"s eaten) respiration egestion (what"s excreted. Terrestrial plants are not very nutritious (low assimilation efficiency: herbivores require whole ecosystems of gut bacteria to be housed in multiple stomachs to digest cellulose, hemicellulose, and other plant molecules. Vertebrates can"t do this on their own: these processes give off trash like methane. Body size: surface area : volume ratio (production efficiency: the smaller the animal, the higher the surface area to volume ratio. Ex: hummingbird vs mouse -> humminbirds need to consume more bc they have a high sa to volume ratio + also a very high mr (they. Plants have defenses -> prohibit them from being eaten too much: ex: poison, thorns. In aquatic systems -> predators regulate themselves: top-down regulation = the rates of consumption at the highest trophic levels determine the species composition/abundance at lower trophic levels -> determines net primary producers. A- carnivorous dragonfly larvae (aquatic insect) -> 55. 6%
