How can a grain crop contaminated with a compound containing lead affect the owl population?

Question

i am writing an essay in science about owls. the topic is: owls are subjected to poisons that have been concentrated through the food chain. Some species of owls are considered endangered, threatened by pesticides and heavy metals that contaminate the foods eaten by their prey.

Answer 1

the lead accumulates in the mouse body, when eaten by an owl the contamination is passed to the owl where it will accumulate to a toxic level if enough mice are consumed by the owl

Answer 2

This process of movement of heavy metals and other toxins thru the food web-chain is called BIOLOGICAL MAGNIFICATION and it goes thru all the trophic levels of the famous FOOD PYRAMID.

The food PYRAMID includes the following from the wide base-bottom of the food pyramid where the photosynthetic plants (autotroph producers) are.

Second trophic level is the primary consumers or vegetarians.

Third trophic level is the secondary consumers or omnivores who eat both plants and animals.

Fourth trophic (top) level is the carnivore-predator, they only eat meat.

The rest are all the decomposers-putrification rotting organisms like fungi and bacteria (who feed off all the dead and dying plants and animal-consumers).

If the heavy metal is in small quantities in the plant, it will gradually increase in the tissues of the each successive trophic level (increasing approximately ten-fold at each trophic level), so that by the time it makes it to the top of the pyramid, where the top predators are, that is where the highest biological magnification has taken place (owl is considered a top predator). So when humans eat the TOP OF THE FOOD PYRAMID, like the top predator fish in the ocean (tuna, sword fish, etc) they are taking in the highest amount of toxins, heavy metals. Eating a vegetarian diet can help keep the biological magnification of toxins down in our tissues, but stopping contamination with the toxic heavy metals is best-healthiest for all of Nature and us, as individual human species.

Answer 3

look up bioaccumulation also known as biomagnification
which demonstrates how toxins accumulate to hurt organisms at the top of the food chain

a case study would be the effect of DDT on the bald eagle