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PRESENTATION OUTLINE

FOOD CHAIN AND WEBS

By Anshpreet Kaur
Photo by B@ss77

A food chain outlines who eats whom. A food web is all of the food chains in an ecosystem. Each organism in an ecosystem occupies a specific trophic level or position in the food chain or web. Producers, who make their own food using photosynthesis or chemosynthesis, make up the bottom of the trophic pyramid. Primary consumers, mostly herbivores, exist at the next level, and secondary and tertiary consumers, omnivores and carnivores, follow. At the top of the system are the apex predators: animals who have no predators other than humans.

Photo by Jeremy Bishop

A food chain only follows just one path as animals find food. eg: A hawk eats a snake, which has eaten a frog, which has eaten a grasshopper, which has eaten grass. A food web shows the many different paths plants and animals are connected. eg: A hawk might also eat a mouse, a squirrel, a frog or some other animal.

Photo by vcoleman

On the blackboard, write the following headings: Producers, Primary Consumers, Secondary Consumers, and Tertiary Consumers. Ask students to name some species under each heading. Then demonstrate how to create a food chain, using some of the species listed.

Photo by David Marcu

Producers, such as plants, create their own nutrients, while primary consumers, also called herbivores, rely on producers for food. The food chain describes who eats whom in the wild. Every living thing—from one-celled algae to giant blue whales—needs food to survive.

The process of transfer of energy from producers through a series of organisms, i.e., from primary consumers to secondary consumers and from secondary consumers to tertiary consumers by process of eating and being eaten constitute a food chain. The correct food chain is phytoplankton >> zooplankton >> fish.

Photo by tsrdesign09

In a Grassland food chain, the initial organisms are grass. They are producers which produces food using solar energy. Insects are primary consumers. They eat plants. They are herbivores.

Photo by Trey Ratcliff

THANKS FOR READING!

by anshpreet Kaur
Photo by Alex