Food Chains Who is dining on who?

Basic Terms Producer: an organism that makes its own food. – Also called autotroph. – Ex: plants Consumer: an organism that gets its food from other organisms. – Also called heterotroph. – Ex: animals and fungus

4 types of consumers 1.Herbivores: organisms that eat ONLY plants. 2.Carnivores: organisms that eat ONLY meat. 3.Omnivores: organisms that eat plants and meat. 4.Decomposers: organisms that live by breaking down the bodies of dead organisms.

Challenge Fold your index card hamburger style. Then open it up, so that you have two boxes on the front and two on the back. Head box one as herbivore, box two as carnivore, box three as omnivore, and box four as decomposer. You have 2 minutes to list as many examples as you can think of.

Challenge Cont… Now share with a thought partner. If you both have the same example, you have to scratch it off. Who had the most examples correctly??

Share a few examples?? 1.Herbivores? 2.Carnivores? 3.Omnivores? 4.Decomposers?

Various Vocab. Predator: an organism that is eating another organism for food. Prey: an organism that is the meal of another. Scavenger: an animal that eats animals killed by other animals. – Ex: Buzzard, eagle

Share a few examples Predator? Prey? Scavenger?

Various Vocab. Primary: first Secondary: second Tertiary: third Quaternary: fourth

Food Chain

Food Chain: a diagram that shows how energy travels from one organism to another in an environment.

A few things to know All energy in a food chain begins with the sun. Arrows in a food chain point to the predator in the relationship. As you move farther away from the sun on a food chain, the predators receive less energy from their prey. – This requires them to need more food.

Let’s Practice 1.Who is a 2 nd level consumer in this picture? 2.Who is the autotroph in this picture? 3.Who is the prey of the snake?

Let’s Practice 1.Who is the tertiary consumer? 2.Who is the autotroph? 3.Name one heterotroph in this picture. 4.Who is the quaternary consumer?

Let’s Review 1.Who gains energy from the snake? 2.Who is the primary consumer? 3.Who is the decomposer?

Let’s Practice 1.Who is the decomposer in this food chain? 2.Who is the autotroph in this food chain? 3.Who is the tertiary heterotroph in this food chain? 4.Who is the predator of insects?

Let’s Practice 1.Who is the primary producers? 2.Who is the primary consumers? 3.Who has the most energy available in this food chain? 4.Who has the least energy available?

Let’s Practice 1.Look at the detritivores. What two vocabulary words did we learn belong in this category? 2.Name an autotroph in this food chain? 3.Who is the tertiary heterotroph? 4.Who is the quaternary heterotroph? 5.Who is one primary consumer?

Closure If the top level consumer on the food chain above tripled in a year, what affect would this have on the rest of the food chain?

Honors: Closure If the 2 nd level consumers in the food chain above doubled, what would need to happen in order for the environment to remain balanced?