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More information  Feeding relationships are often shown as simple food chains – in reality, these relationships are much more complex, and the term ‘food web’ more accurately shows the links between producers, consumers and decomposers.  A food web diagram illustrates ‘what eats what’ in a particular habitat. Pictures represent the organisms that make up the food web, and their feeding relationships are typically shown with arrows. The arrows represent the transfer of energy and always point from the organism being eaten to the one that is doing the eating.  Trophic leves  Organisms in food webs are commonly divided into trophic levels. These levels can be illustrated in a trophic pyramid where organisms are grouped by the role they play in the food web. For example, the 1st level forms the base of the pyramid and is made up of producers. The 2nd level is made up of herbivorous consumers and so on. On average, only 10% of the energy from an organism is transferred to its consumer. The rest is lost as waste, movement energy, heat energy and so on. As a result, each trophic level supports a smaller number of organisms – in other words, it has less biomass. This means that a top-level consumer, such as a shark, is supported by millions of primary producers from the base of the food web or trophic pyramid.

Sea life interesting facts  All living things depend on each other to live. The food chain shows how some animals eat other animals to survive. While being food for animals higher in the food chain, these animals may eat other animals or plants to survive. The food chain is a complex balance of life. If one animals source of food disappears, such as from over fishing or hunting, many other animals in the food chain are impacted and may die. Let's look at two examples of food chains, one in the water and the other on land.  In the Sea  All sea creatures rely on other sea creatures for food to survive. At the bottom of the food chain are the sea plants and plankton. Many types of fish and animals such as the snail, shrimp, jellyfish, and sea star eat the plankton.

Part 2 interesting facts   Sea Plants   Sea Snail   Little Fish  The small animals and fish who eat plankton then become food for larger fish, such as the tuna and mackeral.  These fish are then eaten by larger fish and animals, such as the shark and dolphin.  And who eats the shark? Check out the menu at a seafood restaurant next time you are eating there. Don't be surprised if you find shark on the menu.

Part 3 more information  On land most food chains are short, but scientists still have much to learn about them. They have even more to learn about food chains in the seas. These chains are long. They are also hard to study, because most of the plants and animals live under water. In the water, as on the land, food chains begin with green plants. Some of the plants are tiny-you`d need a microscope to see them. Some are bigger. The green plants are food for many tiny creatures, which become food for bigger creatures. Small fish are eaten by bigger fish, which are eaten by even bigger fish. The biggest, such as tuna, are at the top of the food chains-unless they are caught by humans. Then one of them may turn up in your tuna fish sandwich. Both tuna and you are one part of the food chain that began with a tiny green plant. Food chains are found wherever life is found. The far south of the world, Antarctica, is icy and bitterly cold for much of the year. But in the summer its seas are come alive. The water is rich with tiny plants. They fed on by tiny animals. And these are fed on by small animals such as krill, which look like shrimp. All these animals and plants are for bigger animals, such as fish and squid. Many other animals come to feast in these waters. There are seals, whales, and dolphins. There are many seabirds, among them penguin. All the animals are linked to the tiny green plants. The otters lived off the west coast of North America. They lived in beds of giant seaweed, called kelp. Every year thousands of otters were killed for fur. By the 1900`s almost none where left. But as the otters disappeared, so did the beds of kelp. And so did eagles, harbors seals, and fish. What had happened? The answer was to lay down kelp. Kelp is a green plant at the start of food chains. It is eaten by tiny animals that are eaten by bigger animals that are eaten by fish. The fish are food to eagles and seals, as well as people. Kelp is also eaten by spiny animals called sea urchins. In eating, they may cut off stems at the seafloor. The kelp floats away to the sea urchins are one of the food otters like best. But when hunters kill the otters, there was no one to eat sea urchins. The urchins destroyed the kelp beds. Once the hunters stopped the otters had a comeback. They ate sea urchins, and the kelp began to do well. When the kelp did well, the fish came back-and did so eagles, seal, and fishermen. ​

Part 4 interesting facts  The ocean is such a vast place that it has a very complex food chain. A food chain is a system of organizing living creatures into different levels. Each level is dependent on the organisms below as their food sources. Sometimes when issues such as oil spills or overfishing occur, it can destroy entire populations of fish or other species. In this way, the predators of those creatures (including humans!) are directly affected, since they now have less food to eat. With less food, the predators can go hungry and fall ill or die. On the other hand, the prey of those same creatures may flourish since they are not being eaten, and then start overpopulating. Even this is actually a bad thing, since overpopulation can cause several other problems. As you can see, the ocean food chain consists of a very delicate balance. If something goes wrong, it creates a domino effect and several other creature populations are affected in turn. The marine food chain is divided into the four categories outlined below. Let’s read on to explore how life under the ocean works!