You discover a new species of aquatic mite. To describe its ecological function in the food web, you study its entire life cycle. The life cycle begins as a pregnant mother lays her eggs inside a tadpole in a pond. As the eggs hatch and the larvae mature, they slowly eat the tadpole from the inside out. After killing their host, the larvae swim out into the water and land on the surface of an aquatic insect, where they latch on and inject a proboscis into the insect host and extract nutrients from the insect's body. As the insect host matures, it flies to a new pond. When the insect lands on vegetation in a new pond, the juvenile mites fall off and land in the water, where they consume dead plant matter until they reach adulthood. Once they have matured into adults, the mites begin consuming tiny aquatic insects until they are large and healthy enough to mate, at which point the cycle begins anew. Describe the changing ecological role of this mite species as it goes from birth through reproduction.

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Explanation:

Eggs are laid inside a tadpole and as they hatch inside the host, they slowly eat it up till it dies. In this case, the mite's ecological role is parasitic. A parasite lives off the host, extracts its nutritional requirement from it, and slowly kills the host in the process.

As the larvae swim out into the water and land on the surface of an aquatic insect, where they latch and inject a proboscis into their insect host to extract nutrients, they are also ecologically functioning as a parasite. However, this time, they do not stay long enough on the host to kill it off before falling off and landing in water.

They consume dead plant matter until they reach adulthood after falling off. Organisms that consume dead organic matters are referred to as saprophytes. Hence, they are ecologically functioning as a saprophyte at this stage.

At the mature adult stage where they consume tiny aquatic insects, the mites are ecologically acting as predators. Predators are living organisms that hunt and feed on other living organisms, the prey.

In summary, the ecological role of this mite changes from a parasite to a saprophyte to a predator as it goes from birth through reproduction.

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b is the best answer for this question.