Organisms represented in Food Chains / Food Webs.

Food Chains A food chain shows how each living thing gets its food. Each link in this chain is food for the next link. A food chain always starts with plant life and ends with an animal.

Autotrophs Producers Organisms which can their own, energy by photosynthesis. (e.g. green plants synthesis sugars from CO2 and H2O)

Heterotrophs Consumers Organisms who must eat other organisms (dead or alive) to obtain their energy.

Primary Consumers Primary Consumers are herbivores Herbivores are plant eaters

Carnivores Meat Eaters 2o Secondary Consumers also called first carnivore eat herbivores 3o and 4o Tertiary and Quaternary are consumers that eat other carnivores Top Carnivore: Meat eater at the top of the food chain. Not often hunted by other organisms.

TROPHIC LEVELS: The different feeding level of organisms in an ecosystem are called tropic levels. Producers make the first tropic level in all ecosystem.

Lets make a trophic level pyramid for the following food chain

Omnivore

Scavenger Prey on dead organisms

Decomposers Heterotrophic organisms who secrete digestive enzymes onto dead organism matter and absorb the digested material. (e.g. fungi, bacteria)

Consider this food chain Let’s answer questions 3 a,b,c.

Energy flows in a one way direction in an ecosystem. Buckwheat ---> Gopher ---> Gopher snake ----> Red Tailed Kite

Energy Energy is lost at each level of the food chain 90% of the energy consumed is used by the organism for day to day functions such as: 1. Growing 2. Moving 3. Body Heat 4. Reproducing 5. Breathing etc… Only 10 % of energy gets passed on.

FOOD WEBS Organisms must rely on more than one food source to meet their daily energy requirement. A food web is a series of related food chains displaying the movement of energy and matter through an ecosystem.

Consider the following food web Answer questions 4 a-g, 5, 6