Trophic chain: a pattern typical of the tundra. Chains of food in the tundra zone

This concept can be called by different names: trophic chain, food chain , food chain , ecological links - the essence of this does not change. Climate zones change, flora and fauna change, but the meaning remains unchanged - today you eat food, and tomorrow you yourself - food.

Features of the tundra

The natural zone, located between the arctic and taiga, is very scarce in flora and fauna. Not as deserted as the Arctic, but with warmer climatic zones it is not even worth comparing. The soil is marshy and stony, only mosses with lichens grow on such a moss, and even then it is not everywhere, permafrost does not permit. Closer to the taiga lands, shrubs begin, and sometimes you can even meet a dwarf willow or birch. The fauna is also not very widespread, and it is necessary to add to almost all representatives of the animal world the adjective "polar", the hare is either a wolf, a fox or a bear, and even an owl. Deer, however, just northern.

Food chain

Below is a diagram of the feeding circuit characteristic of the tundra. The photo shows it visually.

It does not include all animals, only the most common. If you do not pay attention to the rare for these places lemmings and musk oxen, then the scheme, typical for the tundra, the food chain is as follows. Mosses and lichens are eaten by herbivores: polar hares and reindeer. This does not raise questions. The peculiarity of the scheme characteristic for the tundra, the food chain is this: some predators (arctic foxes and bears), for lack of a constant animal nutrition, themselves eat lichens with mosses.

Below is a photo. There is a representative on it, without which the circuitry of the food chain characteristic of the tundra would not look like that. It is a reindeer in its natural habitat in the summer.

Winter in the tundra is long and severe. Summer is very short, it contains a spring with rapidly flowering bushes and green lichens and autumn. Further all is simple. The scheme characteristic of the tundra, the food chain is similar to the rest: smaller polar herbivores (polar hares, the same lemmings) are eaten by small polar predators - owls, foxes or wolves. Larger herbivores (reindeer and occasionally encountered musk ox) are eaten by wolves and polar bears.

There are several vertices near the chain. These are all predators that do not hunt each other, but in the natural environment they practically do not intersect: polar owl, Arctic fox, wolf. In the photo below, a predator is shown, with which the circuit characteristic of the tundra, the food chain looks complete. It is a polar polar bear in a natural habitat.

Instead of concluding

The filling of the tundra with flora and fauna is slightly more numerous than described in the article. It is an insect that swamps swampy places in the warm season. There are other birds besides the owls that feed on these insects. Animals from other natural zones wander here. But all this does not affect the main food chain, characteristic of the tundra. The main links of the chain are now known to you.