Can phosphate move through food webs?
1 Answer
Yes, this is part of the phosphorous cycle.
Explanation:
Phosphate is found naturally on earth in its inorganic form, phosphorus (read about the subtle difference between phosphate and phosphorus here). Phosphorus can definitely move through food webs and it does through the phosphorus cycle.
Plants absorb phosphate from the soil and water. When a primary consumer eats that plant, the consumer intakes the phosphorus that was in the plant tissue. If another consumer (a predator) eats that first consumer, the phosphorus in the consumer's tissue is available to for that predator to use also.
Phosphorus is then returned to the earth when an animal or plant dies and decomposes. Thus, phosphorus moves through the trophic layers as a natural part of the phosphorus cycle.
