what is the biological magnification
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Answer:
What is biological magnification?
Biological magnification, or biomagnification, is the increasing buildup of toxic substances within organisms that happens at each stage of the food chain.
For example, when a lion eats a crocodile (yes, this happens), it ingests the toxins in the crocodile, which include the toxins from all the animals that the crocodile has ever eaten, which include the toxins from all the plants that those animals have ever eaten. At each stage of the food chain, the toxic buildup increases.
The buildup of toxic substances within a single organism is called biological accumulation. Biological magnification, then, is when the biological accumulation in each organism is compounded (added together, or magnified). Due to biomagnification, the amount of toxic substances (such as mercury or pesticides) is greater in the bodies of organisms (including humans) that consume other organisms.
Biological magnification occurs because some toxic substances don’t get broken down or filtered out of the body. This means that every organism that eats another gets loaded up with a lot of accumulated bad stuff.
Why is biological magnification important in biology?
Like it or not, there are toxins in many of the foods that we eat. A well-known toxic substance is mercury, which is found in high concentrations in certain fish. When you eat a fish, you are also consuming any mercury it may contain, and in large concentrations, mercury can have severe effects on the human body. Other toxic substances include the chemical bisphenol-A (BPA), which is found in some plastic containers and can leach into food, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), which occur as a by-product of grilling meat.
Did you know ... ?
Mercury concentration is higher in some fish than others. Not surprisingly, bigger fish that eat a lot of other fish have the highest concentrations, including mackerel, tuna, grouper, sharks, and swordfish.
What other words are related to biological magnification?
- biological accumulation
- carnivore
- consumer
- food chain
- herbivore
- omnivore
- producer
- toxin
Explanation:
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- the increasing concentration of toxic substances within each successive link in the food chain.