What is the term for the accumulation of harmful substances in the food chain?
Practice Questions
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Q1
What is the term for the accumulation of harmful substances in the food chain?
Biomagnification
Bioaccumulation
Eutrophication
Sustainability
Biomagnification refers to the increasing concentration of harmful substances in organisms at each trophic level of the food chain.
Questions & Step-by-step Solutions
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Q
Q: What is the term for the accumulation of harmful substances in the food chain?
Solution: Biomagnification refers to the increasing concentration of harmful substances in organisms at each trophic level of the food chain.
Steps: 6
Step 1: Understand what a food chain is. A food chain shows how energy and nutrients move from one organism to another.
Step 2: Learn about trophic levels. These are the different levels in a food chain, like producers (plants), primary consumers (herbivores), and secondary consumers (carnivores).
Step 3: Know that some harmful substances can enter the food chain, often through pollution.
Step 4: Realize that when these harmful substances are consumed by organisms, they can accumulate in their bodies.
Step 5: Understand that as you move up the food chain, each predator eats many prey, leading to higher concentrations of these harmful substances in their bodies.
Step 6: The term for this process of increasing concentration of harmful substances at each trophic level is called biomagnification.