There are fewer lions in Africa's Serengeti than there are zebras...

Question

There are fewer lions in Africa's Serengeti than there are zebras. This is principally because                   .
a. zebras tend to drive off lions;
b. lions compete directly with cheetahs, whereas zebras do not have any competitors;
c. zebras have mutualists that increase their population, whereas lions do not;
d. there is less energy available in zebras to support the lion population than there is in grass to support the zebras;
e. zebras are a keystone species, whereas lions are not

Accepted Answer

Hello everyone here we have a question that asking in a rainforest ecosystem, there are fewer eagles than rabbits, what could be the possible explanation for this? A eagles have fewer offsprings than rabbits. This is incorrect. B rabbits are keystone species while eagles or not. This is incorrect. See less energy is available in rabbits to support the eagles, but there's more energy available in grass to support the rabbits. This is correct. D rabbits do not have predators. Unlike eagles, we know rabbits have predators like eagles. So this is incorrect. So our answer is c less energy is available in rabbits to support the eagles, but there is more energy available in grass to support the rabbits. Among consumers, like Eagles, only around 10% of the energy is converted in biomass. So only 10% of the rabbits that an eagle eats or other things that the Eagles eat is converted into biomass. The rest is lost as heat or is utilized in the organisms movement. So the total biomass and energy of organisms at each trophic level decreases from the bottom up. So for eagles which occupy the apex of the pyramid in the rainforest, only a small amount of energy is available to support the eagles population and rabbits where they are closer to the bottom, significantly rely on plants that possess greater energy. So our answer again is c thank you for watching. Bye

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