Midwestern Corn Belt Food Web
Agricultural
Central United States — Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Minnesota
Description
The US Corn Belt is the world's most productive agricultural landscape, where corn-soybean rotations have replaced native tallgrass prairie. This simplified food web is dominated by crop pests and their predators, with monarch butterflies and pollinator declines highlighting the loss of wild plant diversity. Field margins and Conservation Reserve Program land provide refugia.
Trophic Pyramid
Level 5
Decomposers
Soil bacteria
Arbuscular mycorrhizae
Earthworms
3 species
Level 4
Tertiary Consumers
Red-tailed hawk
Coyote
Great horned owl
3 species
Level 3
Secondary Consumers
Lady beetle
Ground beetle
American kestrel
3 species
Level 2
Primary Consumers
Western corn rootworm
Soybean aphid
Deer mouse
3 species
Level 1
Producers
Corn
Soybeans
Weedy field margins
3 species
Apex Predators
Tertiary Consumers
Secondary Consumers
Primary Consumers
Producers
Key Interactions
- Western corn rootworm has evolved resistance to Bt corn and crop rotation
- Soybean aphids invaded from Asia and are controlled by introduced lady beetles
- Monarch butterflies require milkweed in field margins for larval development
- Neonicotinoid seed treatments affect non-target invertebrates including pollinators