Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Biomagnification


Click here to view a short animation that illustrates how toxic chemicals build up in an ecosystem.

Here is a second animation that illustrates how DDT accumulates in the food chain of an aquatic ecosystem.

19 comments:

  1. DDT is a bda chemical and im glad that it's been banned! who knows what would of happened if DDT was still legal today.
    -annique

    ReplyDelete
  2. So if we dump toxic chemicals into the ocean we would end up harming ourselves if we eat the fish.

    ReplyDelete
  3. The animations, especially the second one, were really interesting and helpful.
    It's really a shame that we harm the environment so much. I mean, how would we like it if we were sprayed with DDT by those organisms?

    ReplyDelete
  4. I would hate to be a mosquito...

    Both of these animations were really really helpful and interesting! I think its just important to be able to tell the difference between an energy pyramid and a food pyramid(what this post it about).

    Fia Hargil
    7J pd 5

    ReplyDelete
  5. I'm pretty sure that oil spills affect this. But does construction of oil rigs make it worse. Alessandro

    ReplyDelete
  6. Y is it called biomagnification??? Alessandro

    ReplyDelete
  7. What if you ate a fish and it had all those toxic chemicals in it? what would happen?

    -Demos

    ReplyDelete
  8. Alessandro: it is part of biology and it magnifies the amount of toxic substances in an organism the farther it is up the food chain.

    Michael N. 7I

    ReplyDelete
  9. i pity the bird, but is the fish affected a lot? or only minimal?

    -Gordon Yang

    ReplyDelete
  10. Does DDT affect humans, if so, then why didn't people realize before that it was bad to use DDT?

    ReplyDelete
  11. Is biomagnification the reason we shouldn't eat a lot of fish? Does biomagnification affect non-aquatic ecosystems? If so, does anyone have an example?

    ReplyDelete
  12. Hi Leslie,

    I wonder if the people who invent these things that cause so much destruction think about all the harm that can be done. Also, does DDT harm us?

    ReplyDelete
  13. scary.. DEET is still used in some pesticide products such as OFF!
    ~Marcus Chan

    ReplyDelete
  14. I feel bad for the bigger fish or the ones at the top of the food chain because they get tons more toxins than anyone else!

    Peter Freitag 7E

    ReplyDelete
  15. This is really interesting. It's kind of scary how at every level the organisms get redder and redder.

    -Claire, 7H

    ReplyDelete
  16. The information was helpful and interesting, but the animation was weird...
    Leila

    ReplyDelete
  17. You know this happens with mercury too?
    You can get mercury poisoning from eating things like dolphin and whale. Scary just how much we affect the Earth

    ReplyDelete
  18. biomagnification sounds rlly cool. =) haha, i thought it would be about magnifying glasses... sily me
    gabi g 7b

    ReplyDelete
  19. This is really helpful
    and cool though

    ReplyDelete