Chapter Seven New Food-chains for Old

Abstract

The natural living world is arranged in very complex channels of supply that are known as food-chains. From the plant through different species of animals there are usually several, often as many as five stages, but seldom more than that. Alfred Lotka called these chains of species connected energy transformers, because each species was using up in maintenance, movement, and increase some of the energy originally captured by plants from sunlight, and passing it on to another in the cycle of supply.