Gray wolves and cougars, also known as mountain lions, once roamed the forests of Western NY and Northern PA, but neither are fully present in the northeastern United States today. In some areas of the world, the apex predator has disappeared from the region entirely, upsetting the ecosystem’s usual homeostasis and requiring a new status quo to try to develop.
Unfortunately, this loss can throw entire ecosystems off balance and have effects further down the food chain. Many have been hunted to near extinction. To many people, large predators are perceived to be dangerous or scary, and historically humans have hunted or otherwise tried to rid these apex predators from developed areas. However, many of our present and historical apex predators have populations that have dramatically risen or fallen through the years, often due to human influence. In the end, humans don’t really fit in any of the usual places on the food chain and much of the population exists somewhat outside of the usual definition of a predator thanks to grocery stores.īlack bear populations have varied in number throughout history, but currently their numbers have increased and are stable in the northeast United States. However, our diverse diets and overall removal from any one specific ecosystem makes us hard to place. In fact, the largest real danger to the black bear is humans. Predators help prey populations from growing too large and having a negative effect on the rest of the food web. Despite their more plant heavy diet, they still reign top of the food chain in many places, as they have no other natural predators. They tend to be opportunistic scavengers feasting on animal carcasses or even human trash, rather than hunting and killing their prey. Most black bears prefer a quieter life of plants and insects, some with the occasional fish. A polar bear is most certainly an apex predator, but the black bears one might find a little closer to home are harder to figure out. Well, it really depends on the bear and the location, but generally few things will eat a bear on any regular basis. Some parts of the world have very distinct top predators, such as lions and tigers and wait… are bears a top predator? Oh my.
This is the apex predator, the top predator in a given ecosystem and the one with no natural predators of its own. Start thinking about just how many animals can eat a rabbit and you realize that your nice, straight line has all of a sudden turned into small tree with a multitude of branches leading up to the rabbit’s many potential predators.Įven with the complicated mix of predator and prey relationships, there are always animals that lay claim to the top of the food web.
This gets more complicated when you begin branching out into a food web. Food chains are the most basic introduction to relationships between plants and animals plants get eaten by an herbivore, the herbivore gets eaten by another animal, and so on until you get to the top. When you teach about the natural world, you realize you spend a significant number of hours discussing the concept of food chains, food webs, and trophic levels with students.
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