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

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Biological magnification is the process in which the concentration of a substance increases as it travels up the food chain. In this scenario, as grasshoppers eat the grass containing 10-6 ppm of pesticide, the concentration of the pesticide in their tissues increases. When rats eat the grasshoppers, the concentration of the pesticide increases further, and the same occurs when owls eat the rats. This results in a higher concentration of the pesticide at the top of the food chain.

You Spray Your Lawn with a Pesticide