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Ecology and pollution
Ecology helps people understand what living things
need to survive, and it also helps people see the problems caused by
changing the natural areas where plants and animals live. Ecologists use
this understanding to save plants and animals from extinction.
 When voles and
other herbivores eat plants, they also eat any pesticides that were
sprayed on them. The pesticides stay in the animalsī bodies and build up
over time. Foxes absorb these pesticides when they eat voles, and eagles
absorb the pesticides in the foxes when they eat fox cubs.
Since voles must eat many plants, foxes must eat
many voles, and eagles must eat many fox cubs to survive, the level of
pesticides in an animal's body is more concentrated at every level going
up the food chain. Large amounts of pesticides can kill an animal or
keep it from having healthy young. Because of this, many pesticides are
no longer used.
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on ecology.
      
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