Misconception |
Reference* |
|
Varying the population size of species will only
affect the others that are directly connected through a food chain.
|
Griffiths & Grant 1985, Munson 1991 |
Green plants are the only producers of carbohydrates
in ecosystems.
|
Storey 1989 |
Plants take in food from the outside environment,
and/or plants get their food from the soil via roots.
|
Bell 1985, Smith & Anderson 1984 |
Food webs are interpreted as simple food chains.
|
Munson 1991, Griffiths & Grant
1985 |
Organisms higher in a food web eat everything
that is lower
in the food web.
|
Griffiths & Grant 1985 |
The top of the food chain has the most energy because
it accumulates up the chain. |
Adeniyi 1985 |
Populations higher on a food web increase in size,
because they deplete those lower in the web. |
Munson 1991, 1994 |
The relative sizes of prey and predator populations have
no bearing on the size of other. |
Gallegos et al. 1994 |
In a food web, a change in size in one population will only affect
another population if the two populations are directly related
as predator and prey. |
Gallegos et al. 1994 |
| More herbivores than carnivores because people keep and breed herbivores. |
Leach et al.1996 |
| Plants are dependent on humans, not vice versa. |
Eisen and Stavy 1992 |
| An organism cannot change trophic levels. |
Lavoie 1997 |
| Humans provide food for other organisms. |
Leach et al. 1996 |
| Food chains involve predator and prey, but not producers. |
Gallegos et al. 1994 |
| Carnivores are big and/or ferocious. Herbivores are passive and/or smaller. |
Gallegos et al. 1994 |
| Carnivores have more energy or power than herbivores do. |
Adeniyi 1985 |
|
*Complete references are available on the Resources
Page. |
|
The
Ecosystem