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Whales and Food Webs
| Whaling pictures | Whales | Species | Whaling Antarctica 1 2 | Whales & food webs | Whaling cards |
| Whales species: Blue | Fin | Humpback | Minke | Orcas | Right | Sei | Sperm | Sperm whale tales |
| Whale pictures to buy Beluga whale Blue whale Bowhead whale Grey whale Humpback whale Killer whale Right whale Sperm whale |
A simple Antarctic food chain and the secret of the success of the baleen whales - keep the chain short and transfer as much energy as possible as efficiently as possible.
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Words Plankton: organisms that live in the top layers of water whether sea, lake, river, stream etc. Plankton are at the mercy of the currents and movement of the water. Some plankton dwellers can move about within the water column, up and down, but drift where the tides and currents take them. Phytoplankton: Phyto - plant, Plankton - see above. These are the tiny plants that capture the energy of the sun and turn it into food, these are the Producers of the Antarctic food web. Producer: Organism that produces food. Usually a green plant, anything from a tree to microscopic algae. The raw materials are sunlight for energy, carbon dioxide and water. Producers drive all food webs and chains. At each step along the chain energy is lost, usually around only 10% or much less is passed on. Zooplankton; Zoo - animal, Plankton - see above. These are the tiny (and not so tiny) animals that feed directly on the phytoplankton |
Whales are the largest animals ever to have lived, larger even than the largest dinosaurs. There are two reasons that they have managed to attain such enormous size - well over a hundred tonnes for the largest blue whales and nearing this amount for some other whale species.
1/ They live in the oceans and so the buoyancy of the water can support their great bulk without having to be supported and moved on land by legs and muscles. Like most other animals, the density of a whale is very close to that of water.
The consequence of this is that the higher up a food chain you get, the lower the biomass of animals (that is number of animals multiplied by their weight).
As whales tap the food chain low down - close to the producers, relatively little energy is lost and so more is available to the whales, so they are able to grow to enormous sizes.
Antarctic Ocean Food Web
The Antarctic Food Web is relatively simple compared to ecosystems in other parts of the world. There are fewer different species, but greater numbers of them. The second most numerous large mammal in the world (after man) is the crab-eater seal, an archetypal Antarctic animal.
A key part of the Antarctic food web are krill small shrimp-like crustaceans that the great majority of Antarctic animals, seal, whales, penguins and other birds, fish etc. feed upon.
Antarctica Cruising Guide
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The Endurance
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