Humpbacks have a highly specialized feeding mechanism. They only prey on krill and small fish.
The food chain really is sun -> algae -> krill (and sometimes small fish) -> humpback whale
Humpbacks have a highly specialized feeding mechanism. They only prey on krill and small fish.
The food chain really is sun -> algae -> krill (and sometimes small fish) -> humpback whale
In recent years we’ve learned that humpbacks are generalist feeders with a wide variety of feeding strategies adapted to different kinds of prey.
Humpbacks will switch between Krill (their staple in many regions) and small schooling fish (herring, sand lance, anchovies, etc.).
But they don’t eat large fish, squid regularly, or anything like seals - so they’re not “generalists” in the broad, anything-goes sense.
They’re still constrained by their baleen filter-feeding system, which limits them to tiny prey
That's just one view of the stack and isn't a systems view. Other things support and interact with those other things.
Algae are the bottom of the ocean food chain. Everything interacts with it. But algae's happy to grow in a bowl of water left in the sun.
Lots of things eat krill and small fish. They're near the bottom of the foodchain too. In addition to algae, krill are opportunistic omnivores who often consume detritus. But their primary diet is algae. Small fish tend to be pretty similar.
It's not that other things don't interact with algae or krill or small fish, it's that those groups are the foundation bedrock of the ocean ecology. And single celled organisms like algae are tough as nails in aggregate. Couldn't kill them all if we tried. Pool owners will be familiar with the struggle.