Food Web (1) Key:
Red Arrow = Quaternary Consumer
Purple Arrow = Tertiary Consumer
Blue Arrow = Secondary Consumer
Green Arrow = Primary Consumer
Lichen: Saprotroph
Turkey Vulture: Detritivore
Since the Introduction of Pythons...
The Everglades ecosystem has seen a steep decrease in the number of the native populations, such as the Panther, Bobcat and the White-Tailed deer, due to the Python's excessive consumption of the native Everglades species. Since the Burmese python eats just about every natural predator, this means that the prey populations would have been expected to grow at uncontrolled rates. However, the python also eats the prey. So, the native population of the Everglades decreases while the Python population increases. This is a very unsustainable model, since the increasing population of Pythons will go on to decrease more and more of the native populations.
Food Web (2) Key:
Red Arrow = Quaternary Consumer
Purple Arrow = Tertiary Consumer
Blue Arrow = Secondary Consumer
Green Arrow = Primary Consumer
Lichen: Saprotroph
Turkey Vulture: Detritivore
Red Arrow = Quaternary Consumer
Purple Arrow = Tertiary Consumer
Blue Arrow = Secondary Consumer
Green Arrow = Primary Consumer
Lichen: Saprotroph
Turkey Vulture: Detritivore
Without the Pythons...
Before the pythons, the Everglades population was in balance, and even able to recover from short-term natural disasters such as hurricanes (density-independent factor), which is something that happens in the wet season.
Nutrient Energy and Nutrient Flow:
The Burmese Python eats (almost) every single animal that it can get its hands on. Due to this, it is denying a lot of the other organisms their daily nutrients that they get from eating. In the food chain, every time something is consumed, the consumer only gets 90% of the energy from that previous organisms. With the pythons eating everything, some predators and animals are getting even less than that. An example can be seen with both the Florida Panther and the Bobcat. The Burmese Python not only eats both of those species, but they also eat mammals that they prey on such as a squirrel (considered as a light snack!) as well as white-tailed deer. This has multiple effects, one being the fact that the Python is limiting the amount of food that other carnivores have access to, thus denying them their nutrients and energy. The second effect will be the fact that the populations of the small mammals such as the White-Tailed deer and the squirrel could potentially grow past its carrying capacity as the Burmese Python is doing a fine job of eating their predators. None of this would have ever happened if humans had not released the Pythons into the Florida Everglades.
What about the Detritivore and Saprotroph?
The detritivore and saprotroph is not heavily impacted by the introduction of the Burmese Python into the Everglades. In the above food webs, the detritivore is the Turkey Vulture, and the saprotroph is the Lichen, a type of tree that gets its nutrients from decaying organic matter.The Turkey Vulture doesn't benefit overall from the introduction of Pythons since the remaining cadavers the bobcat or the panther aren't available to the extent they were beforehand, since the Pythons have decreased the number of panthers and bobcats. However, the Turkey Vulture sees a new, rare food source: pythons that exploded from eating too much. But this only accounts for a small part, and overall the python is harmful to the Turkey Vulture.
The Lichen is indifferent since it survives on dead organic matter, and the amount of dead organic matter, or more accurately the nutrients in the ecosystem is the same throughout.
The Lichen is indifferent since it survives on dead organic matter, and the amount of dead organic matter, or more accurately the nutrients in the ecosystem is the same throughout.