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Thu 15 Mar, 2007 10:38 pm
If a pig eats a mushroom, is the pig a primary or secondary consumer? I ask this because dont mushrooms feed off of other plants.
All Plants feed off other plants, or at least the decayed remains of plants.
Therefore all plants are primary consumers
I cannot think of any fungi that are primarily parasitic. Usually the fungi feed off the decaying remains of bark twigs leaves that are shed or nearly so. (dead wood)
My vote goes for the pig being a secondary consumer with carnivorouse predators being tertiary consumers.
I eat mushrooms all the time. I never really thought about it. And I probably never will again!