Q.What is biomagnification? Draw the flow chart and explain it with respect to DDT.

DDT concentration magnifies at each trophic level because it is fat-soluble and non-biodegradable, peaking in top carnivores.

Biomagnification occurs when a toxic, non-biodegradable and fat-soluble chemical (such as the pesticide DDT) enters a food chain at very low, seemingly harmless concentrations, but because it cannot be metabolised or excreted efficiently, it accumulates in the fatty tissue of each organism that ingests it. Since each predator must consume many prey organisms (each already carrying its own accumulated dose) to meet its energy needs, the concentration of the toxin roughly increases at every step up the food chain — this is the opposite of the 10% loss of energy, since the pollutant, unlike energy, is retained rather than lost as heat. In the classic DDT case: DDT enters aquatic ecosystems and is present at very low concentration in water (~0.003 ppm) → absorbed and concentrated by phytoplankton (~0.04 ppm) → further concentrated in zooplankton that eat the phytoplankton (~0.5 ppm) → concentrated further in small fish (~2 ppm) → still further in large fish that eat many small fish (~25 ppm) → reaching its highest concentration in fish- …