Question

In parasitic food chain, the pyramid of number is
A. Linear
B. Upright
C. Inverted
D. Inverted upright

Answer 1

Hint: Parasitic food chain is a type of food chain that starts from herbivore, but the food energy transfers from large organism to smaller organism, without killing in case of a predator.

Complete Answer:
- The pyramid of numbers indicates the number of organisms at each trophic level. In a parasitic food chain, the pyramid of numbers is inverted. In this, the primary producers i.e. the plants are least number followed by primary consumers (herbivores) followed by secondary consumers i.e. parasites. The maximum number of individuals are present at the top trophic level (hyper parasites).
- A parasitic food chain starts from herbivorous but food energy passes larger to smaller organisms without night killing as in case of predator food chain, Hence the large animals are considered to be the hosts and the smaller animals which fulfil their nutritional requirements from the hosts are considered as parasites.
- The pyramid of numbers shows the total number of individual organisms at each level in the food chain of an ecosystem.
- An inverted pyramid of numbers can be found in an ecosystem where the community contains a few producers with a very large biomass that support a large number of smaller consumers.

Therefore, from the above explanation option (C) Inverted, is correct.

Note: Plants convert the solar energy into photosynthesis are the primary food source. In a predator chain, a plant is eaten by a grass eating animal and a grass eating animal is eaten by a flesh-eating animal.