Question

Assertion: In food chain top consumers have high amount of harmful chemicals.


Reason: These chemicals are not degradable & get accumulated progressively at each trophic level

a) Both A and R are true, and R is correct explanation of the assertion.

b) Both A and R are true, but R is not the correct explanation of the assertion.

c) A is true, but R is false.

d) A is false, but R is true.
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Answer 1

Explanation:

Assertion: In food chain top consumers have high amount of harmful chemicals.

Reason: These chemicals are not degradable & get accumulated progressively at each trophic level

Answer

b) Both A and R are true, but R is not the correct explanation of the assertion.

Answer 2

Assertion: In food chain top consumers have high amount of harmful chemicals.

Reason: These chemicals are not degradable & get accumulated progressively at each trophic level

Assertion is correct and Reason is the correct explanation of the assertion.

• According to 10% Law , all the adjacent higher trophic levels receive 10% of the amount of energy present in the lower trophic levels.

• Now, those organisms present at fourth or fifth trophic levels receive very less amount of energy through one food chain

• So, the higher trophic level organisms need to participate in food web (more than 1 food web) where they obtain energy and mass from various food chains.

• These chemicals are not degradable and hence they get accumulated at each trophic level.

• Since, the higher trophic level organisms participate in more food change they have a higher tendency to accumulate greater amount of non degradable chemicals.

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