Coral Reef Ecosystem Food Web

Over half a billion people depend on reefs for food income and protection.

Coral reef ecosystem food web. Seagrasses are flowering plants that often form meadows between mangrove habitats and coral reefs. Food webs in a coral reef ecosystem. Producers make up the first trophic level. Zooplankton sponges smaller fish and coral polyps.

Fishing diving and snorkeling on and near reefs add hundreds of millions of dollars to local businesses. Coral reefs protect coastlines from storms and erosion provide jobs for local communities and offer opportunities for recreation. For example a queen conch can be both a consumer and a detritivore or decomposer. The ecosystem of the great barrier reef is a delicate and fragile balance with a food chain that has multiple levels in which every part is reliant on everything else.

Their leftover food scraps and wastes provide food or nutrients for other reef inhabitants. They are also are a source of food and new medicines. A food web is a system of interlocking and interdependent food chains. Benefits of coral reef ecosystems.

Abalone dugongs and sea urchins are primary consumers in the great barrier reef and more generally in coral reefs. The trophic level of an organism is the position it occupies in the food chain. Some species of sharks skates and rays live on or near the reef. In each food web there are several trophic levels.

Both schooling and solitary fishes are essential residents of the reef ecosystem. Larger fish rays and octopi are the secondary. Secondary consumers in the great barrier reef sea stars parrot fish and whale sharks are all secondary consumers. Many of the animals raised in mangroves migrate to coral reefs for food spawning and habitat.

Their submerged roots and detritus provide nursery breeding and feeding grounds for invertebrates fish birds and other marine life. Food webs consist of different organism groupings called trophic levels. Primary consumers like clams shrimp zooplankton and small fish eat the producers. Similarly a single organism can serve more than one role in a food web.

Fishes play a vital role in the reef s food web acting as both predators and prey. Others swim in to eat.