The Food Chain
The food chain consists of four main parts:
The Sun, which provides the energy for everything on the planet.
Producers: these include all green plants. These are also known as autotrophs, since
they make their own food. Producers are able to harness the energy of the sun to make
food. Ultimately, every (aerobic) organism is dependent on plants for oxygen (which is
the waste product from photosynthesis) and food (which is produced in the form of
glucose through photosynthesis). They make up the bulk of the food chain or web.
Consumers: In short, consumers are every organism that eats something else. They
include herbivores (animals that eat plants), carnivores (animals that eat other
animals), parasites (animals that live off of other organisms by harming it),
and scavengers (animals that eat dead animal carcasses). Primary consumers are the
herbivores, and are the second largest biomass in an ecosystem. The animals that eat
the herbivores (carnivores) make up the third largest biomass, and are also known as
secondary consumers. This continues with tertiary consumers, etc.
Decomposers: These are mainly bacteria and fungi that convert dead matter into gases
such as carbon and nitrogen to be released back into the air, soil, or water. Fungi, and
other organisms that break down dead organic matter are known as saprophytes. Even
though most of us hate those mushrooms or molds, they actually play a very important
role. Without decomposers, the earth would be covered in trash. Decomposers are
necessary since they recycle the nutrients to be used again by producers.
This table shows the relational biomass of each of the major groups in the food chain:
Tertiary Consumers
Secondary Consumers
Primary Consumers
Producers
\ | | | | | | | | | | | | | | /
Decomposers
How have humans affected the food chain?
When we spray pesticides, we put the food chain in danger. By breaking one link on
the chain means all of the organisms above that link are in threat of extinction (like the
domino effect). By hunting animals nearly to extinction, everything above the animal in the
food chain is put in danger. A 'chain reaction' in the food chain can be perilous! Since the
food chain provides energy that all living things must have in order to survive, it is imperitive
that we protect it.
A food chain shows how each living thing gets its food. Some animals eat plants and some
animals eat other animals. For example, a simple food chain links the trees & shrubs, the
giraffes (that eat trees & shrubs), and the lions (that eat the giraffes). Each link in this chain is
food for the next link. A food chain always starts with plant life and ends with an animal.
1. Plants are called producers because they are able to use light energy from the
Sun to produce food (sugar) from carbon dioxide and water.
2. Animals cannot make their own food so they must eat plants and/or other animals.
They are called consumers. There are three groups of consumers.
a. Animals that eat ONLY PLANTS are
called herbivores (or primary consumers).
b. Animals that eat OTHER ANIMALS are called carnivores.
carnivores that eat herbivores are called secondary consumers
carnivores that eat other carnivores are called tertiary consumers
e.g., killer whales in an ocean food web ... phytoplankton → small
fishes → seals → killer whales
3. Animals and people who eat BOTH animals and plants are called omnivores.
4. Then there are decomposers (bacteria and fungi) which feed on decaying
matter.
These decomposers speed up the decaying process that releases mineral salts
back into the food chain for absorption by plants as nutrients.
Image Map of the Nitrogen Cycle - What happens in the soil?
Do you know why there are more herbivores than carnivores?
In a food chain, energy is passed from one link to another. When a herbivore eats, only a
fraction of the energy (that it gets from the plant food) becomes new body mass; the rest of the
energy is lost as waste or used up by the herbivore to carry out its life processes (e.g.,
movement, digestion, reproduction). Therefore, when the herbivore is eaten by a carnivore, it
passes only a small amount of total energy (that it has received) to the carnivore. Of the energy
transferred from the herbivore to the carnivore, some energy will be "wasted" or "used up" by
the carnivore. The carnivore then has to eat many herbivores to get enough energy to grow.
Because of the large amount of energy that is lost at each link, the amount of energy that is
transferred gets lesser and lesser ...
1. The further along the food chain you go, the less food (and hence energy)
remains available.
The above energy pyramid shows many trees & shrubs providing food and energy to giraffes.
Note that as we go up, there are fewer giraffes than trees & shrubs and even fewer lions than
giraffes ... as we go further along a food chain, there are fewer and fewer consumers. In other
words, a large mass of living things at the base is required to support a few at the top ... many
herbivores are needed to support a few carnivores
2. Most food chains have no more than four or five links.
There cannot be too many links in a single food chain because the animals at the
end of the chain would not get enough food (and hence energy) to stay alive.
Most animals are part of more than one food chain and eat more than one kind of
food in order to meet their food and energy requirements. These interconnected
food chains form a food web.
