Trophic cascade

A trophic cascade is an ecological chain reaction in which changes at one trophic level indirectly alter organisms at other levels, often through predator–prey interactions.

Trophic level: A position in a food chain or food web defined by how an organism obtains energy. Cascades propagate when abundance or behavior changes across these positions.
Sea otter: A marine mammal that feeds largely on benthic invertebrates, including sea urchins. Its predation on urchins can sustain kelp forests along the Pacific coast.
Trophic rewilding: An ecological restoration approach that restores missing species or ecological processes across trophic levels. Reintroducing predators or large herbivores can restart suppressed food-web interactions.
Trophic cascade strength: The magnitude of an indirect effect transmitted across multiple trophic levels. Cascade effects vary with interaction strength, productivity, and food-web structure.
Top-down control: Regulation of populations or ecosystem processes by consumers acting on organisms below them in food webs. Predators can initiate cascades by suppressing prey or changing their behavior.
Kelp forest: A coastal marine ecosystem dominated by large brown algae called kelp. Kelp abundance can rise when predators reduce grazing sea urchins.
Ecological restoration: The practice of assisting the recovery of degraded, damaged, or destroyed ecosystems. Cascade predictions help identify which species or interactions restoration should target.
Mesopredator release: An increase in medium-sized predators after larger predators decline or disappear. It is a common pathway by which removing top predators reorganizes food webs.
Predator–prey interaction: An ecological interaction in which one organism captures and consumes another. Predation transmits many cascades between adjacent trophic levels.
Sea urchin barrens: Underwater areas where intense sea urchin grazing has removed much of the kelp and other large algae. They can form when sea otter declines release urchins from predation.

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