Food webs and trophic levels
Structure and function · Biology
Ecological pyramid
Interactive 3DClimb the trophic pyramid — only a tenth of the energy passes to each level.
Controls
Drag the sliders or type a value — the simulation updates live.
Study notes
Sea otters eat sea urchins; when otters were hunted out, urchins exploded and devoured kelp forests — reintroducing otters restored the forests: a trophic cascade through the web. Removing wolves from Yellowstone had the same cascading effect on rivers. Your gut microbiome is a food web too — antibiotics collapse it like removing a keystone species.