This lesson aims to teach students the difference between food webs and food chains, as well as how toxins in our environment affect large predators through biomagnification.
This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:
"Antibiotic use can increase the abundance of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) within microbial communities. This occurs in many settings, including in agricultural fields and within the digestive tract of livestock. These two settings interact when manure is used as fertilizer, carrying ARGs from the livestock gut to soil. Earthworms — and their gut microbiomes — play key roles in soil nutrient cycling and are often used as bioindicators in environmental risk assessment. However, the impact of common agricultural antimicrobials or the addition of manure on ARGs in the gut microbiome of earthworms is rarely examined. A recent study found that exposure to the fungicide carbendazim altered their gut microbial community and increased the abundance of ARGs. Specifically, earthworms dwelling in the manure-amended soil had more abundant ARGs in their gut microbiome and exposure to carbendazim enhanced this effect..."
The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.