Bioaccumulation and Biomagnification

BIOACCUMULATION

Is the accumulation of a chemical that breaks down slowly and it is concentraded in the organism. It can be hight enought to cause decrease or deat.

BIOMAGNIFICATION

Is the bioaccumulation of a substance in the food chain, cause by a transfer of residues of the substance in smaller organism that are food for larger organism in the chain.

Result in an organism having highter concentrations of a substance that is present in the organism`s food.

FOOD CHAIN AND FOOD WEB

Food chain:

• It ilustrates how energy and nutrients move from one organism to another. 
• Shows transfer of energy from one thropic level to another. 
• Show how matter and energy move trought an ecosystem. 

Food web: 

• Complex network of interconected food chains. 

There are: 

• Grazing food web 
• Betritial food web 

Key word_____ THROPIC LEVEL: Position that an organism occupies in a food chain.

Thropic levels:

• Producers
• Primary consumers
• Secondary consumers 
• Tertiary consumers
• Quaternary consumers  

ECOLOGICAL RELATIONS

Simbiosis: Any of several living arragments between members of two different species, incluiding mutualism, commensalism and parasitism.  

  Parasitism: Relationship between individuals of two species in which one benefits at the expense of the other, sometimes without killing it. 

Mutualism: Assosiation between organisms of two different species in which each is benefited. 

Commensalism: Relation between individuals of two species : one species obtains food or other benefits from the other without ether harming or benefitingthe latter. 

Predation: One organism kills and consumes another.