The document discusses food chains and food webs within an ecosystem. It defines key terms like producers, consumers, herbivores, carnivores, omnivores, and decomposers. It explains that producers like plants make their own food, while consumers eat other organisms. Decomposers break down dead plants and animals, recycling nutrients. A food chain diagrams a single path of energy transfer, while a food web shows interconnected chains. Energy is lost at each trophic level, as shown in an energy pyramid.
2. Words to Know
Producer – an organism that makes it’s own
food
*Plants are
producers
Consumers – an organism that has to eat to
get energy
3. Types of Consumers
herbivore – an organism that only eats plants
carnivore - an organism that only
eats meat
omnivore – an organism that eats
meat and plants
4.
5. Decomposers
• Break down dead
plants and animals
• Bacteria and fungi
are two examples
• Reduces dead
organisms to
simpler forms of
matter
• Returns them to the
soil
6. Predator: a living thing that hunts other
living things for food (lion)
Prey: a living thing that is hunted for food
(rabbit)
Scavenger: an animal that feeds on the
remains of dead animals (vulture)
7. 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
8. Food Web
• A collection of food
chains
interconnected from
the same
ecosystem
• Arrows show the
flow of energy from
one organism to
another
• Multiple consumers
and producers
9. Energy Pyramid
• Shows the amounts
of energy available
at each trophic level
of an ecosystem
• The higher in the
pyramid, the less
energy available
10. Quiz
1. A lion is a __________ because it eats
only
meat. carnivore
herbivore
omnivore
