What Are Trophic Levels? Ecology & Environment | Biology | FuseSchool | Infozilla
Channel: Infozilla
Date: 23/04/2020

How do we find out the position that an organism occupies in a food chain? The different feeding positions in a food chain or web are called trophic levels. All food chains and webs have at least two trophic levels, starting at level one with producers. 

Producers make their own food - so plants. 
Primary consumers make up the 2nd trophic level, and eat plant products. Herbivores like rabbits make up this trophic level. 
Secondary consumers are the 3rd trophic level up, and so on. 
At the top are tertiary consumers. These are usually carnivores, but can also be omnivores like us (humans). 

All food chains have at least two or three trophic levels, but there is rarely more than 4 trophic levels because energy is lost at each stage.