Interactions in Ecosystems Food Chains

What do you think? What is a food chain? What does it look at? What do they tell us?

Food Chains A food chain demonstrates the flow of energy that is gained by eating other organisms in an ecosystem.

Food Chains When drawing a food chain, we draw arrows to indicate the flow of the energy.

Food Chains The sun can be found at the beginning of every food chain. The sun provides plants with the energy they need to produce their own food. Plants are then eaten be various animals!

Food Chains There are three different categories included in every food chain: Consumers Producers Decomposers

Consumers Consume means “to eat”. Consumers are organisms that must eat plants or other animals to gain energy.

Producers Plants also need to gain energy but they do not eat other plants to gain energy. Producers are plants that make their own food.

Decomposers Decomposers break dead organisms into nutrients for producers. Decomposers include insects, fungus, and bacteria.

Label the following as producer, consumer, or decomposer!

What do you think? Are all consumers the same? Do they all eat the same thing? How could we categorize consumers in a way to show which one eats what?

Levels of Consumers Consumers can be broken into three different groups: 1. Primary consumers Usually eat plants 2. Secondary consumers Usually eat small animals 3. Tertiary consumers Usually the top of the food chain.

4 3 CONSUMER 2 1 PRODUCER

Create a food chain: Sun Grass producer Caterpillar Robin consumers Fox

What happens if we remove part of the food chain? What are the consequences?