Summary: Reef Shark

In the article I read, the focal organism is the reef shark and the food web consists of the algae (from coral), then the parrotfish and then the reef shark, or you have the algae (from coral), then the wrasse and then the reef shark. In this food web, the reef shark is known as the top predator and its trophic level is the quaternary consumer. “Sharks are important members of ocean food chains and removing them can have unintended consequences” (Meekan, 2013). When the reef sharks are removed from the ocean, the numbers of smaller predators increases but because there are more fishes such as snappers, this causes there to be less algae eating fish, for example, parrotfish. As there are less algae eating fish, the young coral in the ocean become