Suppose a fox in a food web feed only on rabbits, squirrels, mice and birds and
ID: 68472 • Letter: S
Question
Suppose a fox in a food web feed only on rabbits, squirrels, mice and birds and all of which feed on plant material. Assuming that a fox's daily caloric requirement is 800 kcal, and that only 10% of the energy at one trophic level can be passed to the next trophic level, calculate the following:
A. How many square meters of plant material are required to support the fox if the net primary productivity of the plant material is 8000 kcal/m2/yr?
B. If the fox were to feed only on insect eating birds, how many square meters of plant material would be required?
Explanation / Answer
A. How many square meters of plant material are required to support the fox if the net primary productivity of the plant material is 8000 kcal/m2/yr?
Net primary productivity = Gross primary productivity - respiration requirement
Net primary productivity of plants material = 8000Kcal/m2/year
Daily caloric requirement of fox = 800 kcal x 365 = 2,92,000 K cal/year
square metres of plant material = 2,92,000/8000 = 36.8 m2/year
B. If the fox were to feed only on insect eating birds, how many square meters of plant material would be required?
Total number of energy requirement for birds = 800/4 = 200 Kcal
200 x 365 = 730 Kcal/ year
730/ 200 = 365 m2/year
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