DDT and BIOMAG

Lab Comprehension Why would it be better for you to eat anchovies (small fish) than it would be for you to eat tuna fish (large fish)?

SO… as you move UP the food chain … WHAT things (2) DECREASE? Give me (2) examples (general groups) of DECOMPOSERS and explain their PURPOSE in the ecosystem. VENN DIAGRAM : niche and habitat WHAT are chemoautotrophs AND where would you find them (2)? DEFINE trophic level. What BIOME do we live in?

Q: There is a factory along the lake that produces industrial chemicals…it is rumored that the factory leaks poison into the lake. Why would you not want to eat the fish from that lake?

BIOACCUMULATION / BIOMAGNIFICATION Pollutants move up the food chain and increase at each trophic level.

BIOMAGNIFICATION- processes in an ecosystem where higher concentrations of environmental pollutants (chemicals), such as the pesticide DDT, increase in concentration in organisms higher up the food chain. Generally through a series of prey-predator relationships. Eats 10 Herring Eats 7 Zoo-plankton Eats 5 phytoplankton..

DDT Di chloro di phenyl tri chloro ethane : - Synthetic pesticide Pre diagram video Post - Biomag video Di chloro di phenyl tri chloro ethane : - Synthetic pesticide - Developed to protect soldiers in WWII from malaria and typhus - Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, 1962 - banned as farming pesticide world wide, still controversially used as a disease vector control. BIOMAG video

DDT One of the reasons that DDT did not affect people is because it is not easily absorbed through the skin. A study in 1968 showed that Americans were consuming an average of 0.025 mg a day! Silent Spring

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