Explain phenomenon of “biological magnification”. How does it affect organisms belonging to different trophic levels particularly the tertiary consumers?
The levels of harmful toxicants/pesticides like DDT gets increased at successive trophic levels as they are neither metabolised nor excreted by the organism. They get accumulated in organism’s body with their higher concentrations at higher trophic levels. This is called as biological magnification. Since, the tertiary consumers are at the top of the food chain, so a higher amount of these toxicants is present in them compared to the lower trophic levels.
