Apex predator

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An apex predator, also known as a top predator, macropredator or superpredator, is a predator at the top of a food chain with few natural predators of their own, if any. Apex predators are usually defined in terms of trophic dynamics, meaning that they occupy the highest trophic levels. Food chains are often far shorter on land, usually limited to being secondary consumers – for example, wolves prey mostly upon large herbivores (primary consumers), which eat plants (primary producers). The apex predator concept is applied in wildlife management, conservation, and ecotourism. Apex predators have a long evolutionary history, dating at least to the Cambrian period when animals such as Anomalocaris and Timorebestia dominated the seas. Humans, themselves being apex predators, have for many centuries interacted with other apex predators including the wolf, birds of prey, and cormorants to hunt game animals, birds, and fish respectively. More recently, humans have started interacting with apex...

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