Examples of Secondary Consumers

In a typical food chain, secondary consumers occupy the third trophic level, which is called the trophic pyramid. They are organisms that obtain nutrients and energy through the consumption of primary consumers.

While primary consumers are usually herbivores, which are species that only eat autotrophic plants, secondary consumers can be carnivores or omnivores, depending on their diet preferences. Let’s discuss various examples of secondary consumers found in different ecosystems.

What is a Secondary Consumer?

Secondary consumers are largely carnivores that feed on the primary consumers or herbivores. They are heterotrophs, specifically carnivores, and omnivores. Carnivores only eat other animals. Omnivores eat a combination of plants and animals.

Secondary consumers aren’t always the last step in a food chain. Usually, they are eaten by a larger organism, the tertiary consumer. Some food chains even have a quaternary consumer.

Secondary consumers are mostly carnivores, from the Latin words meaning “meat eater.” In the Everglades, egrets and alligators are carnivores. They eat only other animals. Most carnivores, called predators, hunt, and kill other animals, but not all carnivores are predators. Some, known as scavengers, feed on animals that are already dead.

Some consumers feed on live animals but do not kill them. For example, small arachnids called ticks attach themselves to other animals and feed on their blood, but ticks are not considered predators. They are instead called parasites.

Some secondary consumers eat both plants and animals. They are called omnivores, from the Latin words that mean “eats everything.” A raccoon is an example of an omnivore; it eats plant matter such as berries and acorns, but it also catches crayfish, frogs, fish, and other small animals.

Common examples of secondary consumers in ecosystems include:

Bears, which eat ungulates such as deer.
Birds, which eat plant-eating insects.
Wolves, which eat a mix of large and small-bodied herbivores.
Fish, which eat zooplankton that survives off photosynthetic phytoplankton.

If all these terms sound confusing, take a quick second to review trophic levels, which are the different levels in energy pyramids.

The Role of Secondary Consumers

Secondary consumers are an important part of the food chain. They control the population of primary consumers by eating them for energy. Secondary consumers also provide energy to the tertiary consumers that hunt them. Scientists keep track of the energy movement through consumers by grouping them into tropic levels.

Because metabolic heat is generated when a creature eats another organism, energy is lost as it progresses up the trophic levels, as shown by the pyramid. The pyramid’s base generates all of its energy. When a secondary organism eats, it only receives 1% of the initial energy available.

To provide enough energy to the pyramid’s top tiers, there must be many more producers and plant-eaters than anything else. However, the fact that there are fewer secondary customers does not diminish their importance.

There is a delicate balance within the food chain. Secondary consumers will die hungry (or worse, extinction) if there aren’t enough secondary consumers. If there are too many secondary consumers, they will consume more and more primary consumers until they are extinct. Both extremes would disrupt Earth’s natural system of life.