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5.2 Food chains and food webs 🦊🕸🌲➡️🐛 (Producers, decomposers and…
5.2 Food chains and food webs 🦊🕸🌲➡️🐛
Predators and prey
An organism needs to live in habitat where it can find enough food
The wedge-tailed eagle is a predator of the rabbit and the rabbit is the prey of the wedge-tailed eagle
Animals must eat other animals or plants to get nutrients these animals are called predators
If two animals eat the same food in the same habitat they must compete for food, they are competitors
Plants make their own food from gasses, nutrients and energy from the sun.
The Australian long-nosed potoroo and introduced rabbits compete for food, shelter, living space and water
Food Chains
Grass uses the energy from the sun to make food, a grasshopper may eat the grass to get energy and a kookaburra might eat several grasshoppers to get energy it needs
Plants get there energy from sunlight, and animals get their energy from the food they eat
The sun gives grass energy to grow, the grass gives the grasshopper energy, the grasshopper the kookaburra energy and, when the kookaburra dies, it gives the bacteria energy
Plants and animals use energy in growing and in day-to-day activity
Food chains start with the sun, and usually end with bacteria or fungi
A food chain is shown by a flow chart, the flow chart shows the energy flow
Energy flow is shown by the arrows of the food chain which always point in the direction where the energy goes.
The sun is not an organism but is usually included since it is the main energy source
Producers, decomposers and consumers
The food chains start with the Sun, the sun gives out light energy
Organisms that produce their own food are called producers
In the leaves of the plant the process of photosynthesis occurs, the process of using energy to convert water and oxygen is photosynthesis
Since animals can not make their own food they must eat plants or other animals to get the energy and nutrients they need these animals are called consumers
Plants take in the suns energy in their leaves using a chemical called chlorophyll
Consumers which only eat plants are known as herbivores
Consumers which eat other animals are called carnivores
Omnivores are consumers that eat plants and animals, an example of this is a Human
Decomposers break down the remains of dead plants and animals in addition to breaking down any waste products left by living animals
Decomposers are very important for any ecosystem they make up the last part of the food chains
Decomposers release the nutrients from dead matter into the atmosphere, water and soil increasing the levels of available nutrients in soil
When an animal dies, a scavenger such as a Tasmanian devil, fox or rat will find dead animals or plants and eat them
Scavengers start process of 'recycling' dead animals and waste but they are not decomposers, scavengers do not return essential nutrients back to the soil
Once scavengers have finished there is a bunch of microscopic bacteria and usually easily seen fungi to begin to decompose the remains
Consumers are further classified into primary and secondary or tertiary consumers
Primary consumers are herbivores, they eat plants algae and other producers
Secondary consumers eat herbivores, a snake that lives in the desert and eats hopping mouse would be a secondary consumer
Tertiary consumers eats secondary consumers, a barn owl wound prey on and eat a snake
There may be a lot of levels of consumers in a food chain before it finally reaches the top predator, the top predator in a food chain is called an apex predator
Food webs
A food web is produced when all of the food chains in the ecosystem are joined togethor
A food chain is a possible path energy may take a it moves through the ecosystem
Within a food web, there are at least four different food chains
A food web is made up of all of the food chains in an ecosystem
Changes often occur in food webs as the populations of different organisms increase, decrease or disappear altogether
For example, tadpoles might be prey for fish one week, but if they become frogs the next week they will no longer be available to fish but instead could be a food source for kookaburra
