Food Chains, Food Webs, Energy Pyramids

Energy TRANSFER

Food Chains, Food Webs, Energy Pyramids

•Energy for life begins

with the SUN

Green plants make glucose molecules using sunlight during the process of photosynthesis. They keep and use most of it for themselves.

ENERGY is stored in the molecules of glucose.

Producers use cellular respiration to release the energy needed for their life functions.

The energy that is not used by producers can be passed on to organisms that cannot make their own energy.

CONSUMERS: Organisms that cannot make their own energy.

Consumers eat producers to get energy:

Herbivores: consumers that are plant eaters.

in the food chain they are called first order or primary consumers

Some of the energy is lost as Heatto the atmosphere

Energy that is not lost to the atmosphere or used passed on

*This energy is available for another consumer.

A secondary consumer is a consumer that eats another (primary) consumer.

May be an omnivore or a carnivore

May be a predator OR

scavenger

Most of the energy the secondary consumer gets (from the primary consumer) is used by the secondary consumer.

A tertiary consumer is a consumer that eats a consumer that eats (secondary) consumer that ate another (primary) consumer.

•May be a carnivore or a omnivore

•May be a predator

•May be a scavenger

Types of consumers •Herbivores: plant eaters

•Carnivores: eat only animals

•Omnivores: eat BOTH plants and animals

•Decomposer: breaks down and decay dead plants and animals

• Consumers that hunt & kill other consumers are called predators.

The animals that are hunted & killed are called prey.

Scavengers: eat consumers that have already died

What special

adaptations do

you think they

might have??

FOOD CHAIN

The transfer of energy from sun to tertiary consumer can be shown in a FOOD CHAIN.

Another way of showing the transfer of energy in an ecosystem is theENERGY PYRAMID.

Energy pyramids • show that the amount of available energy decreasesas it is passed along food chain

Energy pyramids show

It takes a large number of producers to support a smaller number of primary consumers

** the base of the pyramid is supported by the producers

It takes a large number of primary consumers to support a smaller number of secondary consumers

Food Webs:•Are made up of many

interconnected food chains

•They show the feeding relationships in an ecosystem.

Food Web

Food Web Question

• Why is a food web a better way of describing the path of food in an ecosystem?