Food Chains and Food Webs

FOOD CHAINS AND FOOD WEBS

Words to Know

• Producer: An organism that makes its own food. Plants are producers.

• Consumers: An organism that has to eat to get energy.

Types of Consumers

• Herbivore: An organism that eats only plants.

• Carnivore: An organism that eats only meat.

• Omnivore: An organism that eats both meat and plants.

FOOD CHAIN

• Producers: Make their own food by PHOTOSYNTHESIS (using sunlight to create energy).

• Primary Consumers: Eat plants for energy.

• Secondary Consumers: Eat primary consumers for energy.

Decomposers

• Break down dead plants and animals.

• Examples: Bacteria and fungi.

• Reduces dead organisms to simpler forms of matter.

• Returns them to the soil.

Predator, Prey, and Scavenger

• Predator: A living thing that hunts other living things for food (e.g., lion).

• Prey: A living thing that is hunted for food (e.g., rabbit).

Food Chain

• Shows how each living thing gets food.

• Always begins with the producer.

• Arrows show the flow of energy from one organism to another.

Food Web

• A collection of interconnected food chains from the same ecosystem.

• Arrows show the flow of energy from one organism to another.

• Contains multiple consumers and producers.

Quiz

1. A lion is a carnivore because it eats only meat.

2. A plant is a producer.

3. True. A food web can have multiple consumers and producers.

4. Which animal would fit in the blank of this food chain? mouse

5. The plant gets its energy from the sun.