Thursday, March 31, 2011

The Top of the Food Chain

The food chain - life’s way of telling you just where you are on the totem pole. Up near the top are us, the humans, evolved to be the perfect predator. At the bottom are the krill and insects, as befits their rank.
Our utter perfection is shown in how we have conquered the mighty lion, tiger and puma. Sure, they make occasional strikes, but overall, we’ve won and we’ve kept it that way.
So. Now that we’ve determined our rank on the food chain, guess who’s on the very top?
Not the lion, obviously, nor the tiger, nor the puma. And in case you were wondering, it’s not the elephant either.
No, it’s the mushroom.




Actually, to be precise, it’s worms, mushrooms and bacteria. When you die, they eat you - always have, and hopefully always will. Without them, we’d have a pile-up of dead bodies and just a whole lot of death in general, as the nutrients in the soil would be depleted and then nothing would grow, leading to mass death. The only safeties would be in a completely ocean-supported lifestyle, although if all bacteria died, not just composers, we’d really be messed up. The ocean food chain/circle mirrors our own; energy travels up until the “top” of the chain dies, at which point it’s eaten by bacteria, to begin the cycle anew.
In other words, you should be grateful to these bacteria. Even though they’re the reason you’ll never be the top of the food chain, there wouldn’t even be a food chain without them.

To see the original blog post with the mushroom, click on the image OR click here!

Thanks for reading my kinda-not-really-educational rant!
-[Asian X]

2 comments:

  1. So, do decomposer's still work when a person is cremated and not buried? Anyways, they're like trash collectors, not really talked about but still kinda important.

    Good article though

    Daniel C.

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  2. Meh, yeah. So next time your teacher says you'll end up as a garbage man, tell her you'll be at the top of the food chain :D

    I think they still work when people are cremated, but not as much. I mean, there're forest fires all the time and stuff still grows there...but I'm not positive if they're decomposers.

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