You spray your lawn with a pesticide. The concentration of the pesticide in the tissues of the grass on your lawn is 10⁻⁶ parts per million (ppm). Grasshoppers eat the grass and are in turn eaten by rats, which are then eaten by owls. At each successive trophic level, the concentration of pesticides increases. The term for this process is

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Biological magnification, also known as biomagnification, is the process by which certain substances such as pesticides, heavy metals, and other toxins become more concentrated in organisms as they are passed up the food chain. In this scenario, the concentration of pesticides increases as the grasshoppers eat the grass, rats eat the grasshoppers, and owls eat the rats. This can have serious implications for the health of higher-level predators, such as the owls, and can ultimately affect the entire ecosystem.

You Spray Your Lawn with a Pesticide