Top predator isn't a trophic level
- The idea
- Predict
- See it
- Why
- Check
The idea
“The top predator is the tertiary consumer, and any carnivore is a secondary consumer.”
Many food chain diagrams top out at a tertiary consumer, so top predator starts to sound like a trophic level. It only means nothing eats the animal.
The short version
The mistake: The top predator is the tertiary consumer, and any carnivore is a secondary consumer.
What's actually true: You find a trophic level by counting feeding steps up from the producers, which are level 1.
- Producers like grass or algae are trophic level 1. Each feeding step up adds a level, so primary consumers are level 2, secondary 3 and tertiary 4.
- Carnivore only describes a diet. A top predator can be level 3 in a short chain or level 5 in a long one.
- About 10 percent of the energy passes up each step, so secondary consumers get about 1 percent of the producers' energy.
On the exam: Producers are level 1. Count feeding steps up from there, and ignore labels like carnivore or top predator.