Trophic cascade

A trophic cascade is a domino effect in an ecosystem where changes in the abundance of one trophic level propagate through the food web to affect other levels. The classic example is the removal of an apex predator, which leads to increased herbivore populations, which then overgraze vegetation, altering the entire ecosystem structure.

Trophic cascades demonstrate that ecosystems are not governed by bottom-up forces alone. Top-down control by predators can be equally or more important in shaping community structure. The concept has been central to debates in conservation biology about the reintroduction of predators.