What if food chain is broken

I'm just guessing, but somebody goes hungry What happens is that throughout the food chain the energy stays the same. If a food chain is broken, it becomes messed up so animals would probably not be able to eat the right amount of food needed so they would die. If a component is left out of the food chain then something will not be able to eat it. Then it will die, and the component above it in the food chain will not be able to eat it, and will die.

Basically, if a component is left out of the food chain, the food chain collapses. When part of a food web or chain is broken what will happen is that all the animals on that chain will die. This is because if some animal eats the animal that is dead and it's the only thing they eat, it will die of hunger and then some animal that eats that animal will also die of hunger and then it will continue happining and in the end every animal will die, which is very sad.

If a member of the food chain is killed, all animals off that chain will suffer in some form. They die. As consumers chemoheterotrophs , animals cannot produce their own food. Any lost link in the food chain prevents the organisms above that point from surviving, at least in their current position on the chain. You get energy into your body. Log in. Food Chains and Food Webs. Study now. See Answer. Best Answer. Study guides.

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Only consumers would be affected. All the organisms in the chain are affected. The decomposers and producers are affected. Related Test: Test: Ecosystem - 3. In Britain, for instance, the red ant population plummeted as the result of fewer sheep grazing in pastures; sheep had previously kept the grass short, the red ant's habitat preference.

In turn, the paucity of red ants led to the extinction of a large butterfly species that eats red-ant eggs as part of its life cycle. Food chain disruptions from the loss of a single species can be ecosystem-wide, too: When sea otters decline, populations of sea urchins, a preferred otter food, can explode. The resulting overpopulation of kelp-munching urchins, meanwhile, can reduce kelp forests, threatening numerous marine species that rely on this habitat.

Overall ecosystem instability due to reduced biodiversity ranks among the consequences of species extinctions. As the number of species in a food chain decreases, there are fewer sustainable alternatives for members of the food chain that had depended on the extinct species. Biodiversity also lends genetic variability to a population, helping it adapt to fluctuating environmental conditions.

For instance, a study of tropical rain forests in West Africa conducted by ecologists at Leeds University between and suggested that biodiversity mitigates the effects of climate change and helps tree species adapt to drought conditions. Extinction of animal or bird species in the food chain may alter the physical environment as well. For instance, accidental introduction of the predatory brown tree snake to Guam wiped out 10 of the 12 native bird species on the island causing collateral damage to the forest, according to a University of Washington study.

Biologists found that extinction of the birds had adversely impacted tree pollination, seed germination and seed dispersal.