Are humans at the top of the food chain?

RainBow_xo

Some argue we are because of intelligence of man and others argue that we are not because we could easily be devoured by other top predators.

I agree with the latter, if it wasn't for a few 'intelligent' people, we wouldn't even have weapons and then where would we place in the food chain.

What do you think?

#randomthoughts

Capt'n Midnight

Defenceless, humans aren't.

Most people can run a marathon with training. Few animals can run a marathon. Try it under the noon day sun, then swimming a river and climbing a tree, a determined human would still be after you.

We don't have claws and fangs, but we've always been pretty much #1 at throwing stones.

An individual human might be at risk from predators, but like a lot of other primates we go around in groups.

SpaceTime

Humans are a social species so you can't really look at one defenceless human unplugged from the society. We're arguably "post food chain" these days as we farm our food and no longer hunt.

Anything attempting to prey on us doesn't tend to do it twice either!

We're probably the scariest species of large animal on the planet.

cerastes

Swim around the cape in a shoal of humans, post if you survive.

floppy boot stomp

It's a chain. Like a circle. You can't be top of it. It'd be called the food pyramid if somebody Was on top.

feargale

An té nach bfhuil lãidir ní folãir dō bheith glic.

OpenYourEyes

If you examine the pressure that humans have on other species in terms of feeding and predation, and compare it with the pressure that any other species of group of species has on us in terms of them feeding and predating us, then I think it's obvious we're at the top by a long way.

I agree with SpaceTime - its not about individuals, its about the species overall and our societies and large functioning and co-operative groups are an important part of our evolution and our species.

feargale

cerastes wrote: »

Swim around the cape in a shoal of humans, post if you survive.

I did it and was the only one of the shoal to survive. There's safety in numbers. The others were hooked on beer bottle bait.

Capt'n Midnight

cerastes wrote: »

Swim around the cape in a shoal of humans, post if you survive.

oddly enough our hunting of seals on the beach would affect their numbers.

one thing humans can do is survive off many foods, we can plunder most eco-systems and there won't be much feedback to slow us down because our memory means we can travel far and wide so can take advantage of limited resources in many eco-systems at the same time.

our ancestors survived and probably wiped out things bigger than elephants , outside Africa our arrival has coincided with mass extinctions of large animals

SpaceTime

We do more than that though by farming. We compete largely for raw space now by turning wild ecosystems into managed farmland.

We've gotten to the stage that we artificially breed strains of plants, breeds of animals and have even begun to directly modify DNA sequences of plants and animals to produce food. I'd say it's going to come to a stage where we'll synthesis or biologically grow meat proteins too which might end livestock farming.

We're very much outside the normal food chain.

On top of that we consume other non-food energy in vast quantities too.

RainBow_xo

I wonder if this is a topic with a clear cut answer. It seems as though it depends on how you look at things. I was thinking in terms of 'tropic levels' that we weren't that high (prob somewhere in the middle) but when you take into account all the things you have all mentioned, we don't really fit in the food chain, I guess.

I thought the animal at the top of the food chain was one that didn't have any other animal competing with it for food.

SpaceTime

We don't have anything competing with us for food and we'll basically cook anything that does!

cerastes

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

oddly enough our hunting of seals on the beach would affect their numbers.

one thing humans can do is survive off many foods, we can plunder most eco-systems and there won't be much feedback to slow us down because our memory means we can travel far and wide so can take advantage of limited resources in many eco-systems at the same time.

our ancestors survived and probably wiped out things bigger than elephants , outside Africa our arrival has coincided with mass extinctions of large animals

I wasnt refering to seals, is that what you're referring to when you say their numbers? I meant jokingly if they went for a swim around the cape, there be sharks, big ones.
I dont know what you mean by probably wiped out things bigger than elephants unless you mean mammoths, Im sure there would be some evidence of these creatures or other large animals.

Though Im sure its correct to assume human ancestors have wiped out many species. I suspect the knock on affect means we have wiped out as many species by interfering in and eliminating or reducing their food chain and by destroying habitat to suit us and feed and raise animals that suit furthering our own survival, rather than solely eating certain species out of existence, although Ive no doubt we directly munched our way through species, I think many have been inconspicuous creatures and have gone little or completely unnoticed opposed to very large animals.

Capt'n Midnight

SpaceTime wrote: »

We do more than that though by farming. We compete largely for raw space now by turning wild ecosystems into managed farmland.

We've gotten to the stage that we artificially breed strains of plants, breeds of animals and have even begun to directly modify DNA sequences of plants and animals to produce food. I'd say it's going to come to a stage where we'll synthesis or biologically grow meat proteins too which might end livestock farming.

Back in the 1970's ICI were able to grow microbes in a vat. SCP - single celled protein "pruteen". 50,000 tons a year from a reactor with a volume of 1,500m3. If fuel was cheaper we wouldn't even need farms.
And if energy was cheaper we could make fuel from water and a carbon source like CO2 or waste.

The reactor is the vertical building below the hands of the microscope user in the picture at the bottom
https://books.google.ie/books?id=eEB6-exO8bQC&pg=PA14&lpg=PA14&dq=ici+scp+pruteen&source=bl&ots=p2fFlgUvsI&sig=V7WFP0LufQwe_r4GxDV_i2jFxos&hl=en&sa=X&ei=ZQfdVJvwLsa07gbs0YGYAQ&ved=0CCwQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=ici%20scp%20pruteen&f=false

Capt'n Midnight

cerastes wrote: »

I wasnt refering to seals, is that what you're referring to when you say their numbers?

If you kill off all the seals then the sharks will starve or go away.

We've out competed other thing before. You don't have to go head to head if you can undermine.

I dont know what you mean by probably wiped out things bigger than elephants unless you mean mammoths, Im sure there would be some evidence of these creatures or other large animals.

Giant Sloths, mammoth , mastodon . Possibly some very large lizards in Oz,

Large predators would include stuff like cave bears, sabretooth cats, and lots of giant birds

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternary_extinction_event#The_Pleistocene_or_Ice_Age_extinction_event

Big reptiles
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megalania
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quinkana

Unicorns
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elasmotherium

manjosh

Actually some people really really do shake ones faith weather we are at the top of the chain.
And i believe we are the smartest specie so that automatically put us at the top.

ibstar

I always considered viruses to be at the top of the "food chain".
They can evolve and adapt faster than our species, and they have been here far longer than us, and will be here after the human extinction striving on other living organisms, or go into dormant stage until another ecological boom.

Speedwell

We have our small predators, we do. Parasites and gut bacteria and various diseases. That is, the ones that aren't symbiotes. It's complicated.

As far as intelligence, new findings about octopuses seem to indicate that they have a more complex brain and nervous system than we do.

countrynosebag

I think being dominant does not mean being at the top.
We seem to have cemented, polluted, logged, farmed so much and not really left much to continue for the future, hardly intelligent behaviour.
We do have weapons and groups but, a small thing like a deadly spider bite or scorpion sting could see us off. Resistance to infection and/or means to combat it have been badly misused and created what I think will be a source of much death around the planet.
We are unable or unwilling to live side by side with other people, our own, never mind anyone perceived as different or other and therefore enemy or at the very least lesser and fair game. We have wars constantly killing of them and ourselves and wasting yet more precious resources.
It is not superior behaviour to fail to ensure survival of the species and the means to enable this. It is crass stupidity.
At least many other species, which, could easily damage and/or kill us seem to exist Within bounds of survival needs only. They use A habitat most do not be spoil and I foresee the demise of homo sapient and seem to have a sense of inevitable self extinction and feel rather relieved that the planet will maybe, not assuredly, have a chance to continue and become a haven for many more than us that are not necessarily better in our eyes but at least diverse and not usually intent on complete destruction of everything in sight.

Irelandcool

I still say were part of the food chain but it depends on the place and situation you're in at the moment. Plenty of accounts of animals preying on human. Humans I think while being the most intelligent and evolved creatures on the planet are not immuned 100% from natural selection.

Capt'n Midnight

Nah, we are super-predators.

Yes there are things that can feed on Humans. But if they do it too much we have a habbit of exterminating their whole species from cave bears to viruses.

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-34011026

The analysis of global data details the ruthlessness of our hunting practices and the impacts we have on prey.

It shows how humans typically take out adult fish populations at 14 times the rate that marine animals do themselves.

And on land, we kill top carnivores, such as bears, wolves and lions, at nine times their own self-predation rate.

Another way of looking at is that we aren't just at the top of the food chain, we harvest at all levels of it. We fix more nitrogen than nature so it could be probably be argued that we are responsbile for a lot of base of the food chain.

Most other predators would be limited by negative feedback when they start to use up all the resources in an eco-system, however our trick of being able to harvest the resources in one ecosystem by utillising resources from another means we can continue on regardless.

Speedwell

Speedwell wrote: »

As far as intelligence, new findings about octopuses seem to indicate that they have a more complex brain and nervous system than we do.

Having a more complex central nervous system does not make one intelligent.
You can have the parts of a super computer but put them together incorrectly and you get nothing.

Also same analogy but you run a substandard operating system and the super powered machine grinds to a slow halt