Parasitism in trophic levels

Parasitism and trophic levels.

A parasite has multiple life stages. And as with most other organisms they fit in a food web differently depending on their life stage.

Frog Frogs start their life as Egg/frogspawn where they are at the bottom of the food web “defenseless”, when they hatch to become tadpoles they are herbivores, so primary consumers, once they reach fully grown adult frog they are carnivores and ferocious predators.

Lion As an adult it’s a great cat and a successful hunter and killer, an apex predator. As a newborn and juvenile kitten it’s less capable, though with most the markings and features of its adult self, but as humans they are most often born without teeth, they get their first set at an age of 2-3 months.

Dragonfly The dragonfly is interesting as both it’s nymph, or larvae state is predatorial. Each stage lives in different habitats, The adult flies elegantly through the air with two pairs of wings making it an incredible hunter. As a larva, it’s aquatic, and benthic at that, but still an avid hunter which preys on animals of up to a similar size!

Fly The common housefly lays its eggs in a nutritional substance, such as lunch left on the kitchen counter, following an incubation period these hatch to reveal a larva which feeds on the substance the eggs were laid in until it’s ready for its next life stage, the pupa, and then its adult life stage.

Amoeba and Bacteria In the microbial world, life stages are not as globally accepted as the only truth, here are examples of organisms which split down the middle to go from one fully functioning individual to two fully functioning individuals in mere moments

“Parasites” There are many different types of parasites with different life cycles and life stages living in different places. Some have adult life stages in large heterotrophs such as an apex predator or a large herbivore or even humans. Spreading can then happen with feces, either in water or on grass which is then consumed by a different herbivore thereby spreading the parasites.