Top Predator

M Imaduddin muadz
Belva Ariya Mahendra
Afthoni Nur Fuadi
Deep ecology (Naess 1989, Sessions 1995)

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 An apex predator, also known as an alpha predator or apical predator, is
a predator residing at the top of a food chain upon which no other
creatures prey. Apex predators are usually defined in terms of trophic
dynamics, meaning that apex-predator species occupy the highest trophic
level or levels and play a crucial role in maintaining the health of their
ecosystems. One study of marine food webs defined apex predators as
greater than trophic level four. The apex predator concept is commonly
applied in wildlife management, conservation and ecotourism.
Food chains are often far shorter on land, with their apices usually limited
to the third trophic level for example, giant constrictor
snakes, crocodilians, Theropods, hyenas, Varanids, wolves or big
cats preying mostly upon large herbivores. Apex predators do not need to
be hypercarnivores.
 Apex predators affect prey species' population dynamics. Where two competing species are in an ecologically unstable
relationship, apex predators tend to create stability if they prey upon both. Inter-predator relationships are also affected by
apex status. Non-native fish, for example, have been known to devastate formerly dominant predators. One lake
manipulation study found that when the non-native smallmouth bass was removed, lake trout, the suppressed native apex
predator, diversified its prey selection and increased its trophic level.
Effects on wider ecosystem characteristics such as plant ecology have been debated, but there is evidence of a significant
impact by apex predators. When introduced to subarctic islands, for example, Arctic foxes predation of seabirds has been
shown to turn grassland into tundra. Such wide-ranging effects on lower levels of an ecosystem are termed trophic
cascades. The removal of top-level predators, often and, especially, recently through human agency, can radically cause
or disrupt trophic cascades.
Keystone species, a concept first described by zoologist Robert Paine to explain the relationship between
the starfish species Pisaster ochraceus and mussel species Mytilus californianus, are apex predators within functional
groups.
The saltwater crocodile is the largest
living reptile[ and is the dominant Electric eels have a defense that no non-
predator throughout its range.The human predator can
circumvent. Caimans, jaguars, gian
related Nile crocodile, which even otters, piranhas, and humans usually avoid
preys upon great apes (humans them lest they get a defensive electrical
and chimpanzees), is at the top of the shock, the same sort of electrical shock that it
uses for subduing prey.
food chain in African waters.