The marine animal that preyed upon sea otters, creating a trophic cascade, was a great white shark, Carcharodon carcharias.
Added by Johanna H.
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A trophic cascade is an ecological phenomenon triggered by the addition or removal of top predators and involving reciprocal changes in the relative populations of predator and prey through a food chain. Show more…
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Pacific Otters depress the numbers of their primary food source, sea urchins, which allow the urchin's primary food source, kelp, to be more abundant. This type of interaction between species is known as a: Apex predator Boom and Bust cycle Trophic Cascade Tertiary consumer Scramble competition
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In the past, pacific sea otters were hunted to near extinction. Without the otters, kelp forests along the coast started to die because sea urchins, the otter's favourite food, were able to overgraze them. Once otters became protected, the kelp forests began to recover as the urchins were back in check. In this kelp forest ecosystem, sea otters are a ________ species.
An example of a trophic cascade in ecology involves _________, where __________ benefit from the presence of an upper-level consumer. mollusks; sea stars seaweed; otters otters; seaweeds humans; orcas
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