Trophic Levels Reflection

Today in class we did an online activity on trophic levels of 5 different ecosystems. Our job was to categorize all the species given to us into a food chain and figure out which goes where and what makes it fit into that part of the food chain. The five different ecosystems are: Deciduous Forests, a Hot Desert, Grasslands, Antarctic Ocean Shore, and Freshwater Lake. There were different categories for each part of the food chain. These categories were Autotrophs (Producers), First Order Heterotrophs (Primary Consumers), Second Order Heterotrophs (Secondary Consumers) and Third Order Heterotrophs (Tertiary Consumers).  When each of the species where in the place you thought they belonged in you hit the button to calculate the pyramid of energy which gave you the total energy each part of the chain produces.


Throughout each of the 5 ecosystems, it showed that the Third Order Heterotrophs had the smallest amount of energy, which ranged from 0.19-8. Whereas Autotrophs had the highest number of energy amounts, that ranged from 200-8006. I think it is crazy to see that animals have an impact on the amount of energy that is produced for each ecosystem.