Food Chains and Food Webs Intro

This is a food chain that includes grass, a grasshopper, and a bird. grass → grasshopper → bird

How is the grass in this food chain best described?

• It is a producer, because it makes its own food.

• It is a producer, because it is eaten by consumers.

• It is a consumer, because it gets energy from producers.

• It is a decomposer, because it breaks down sunlight

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How does the food chain start?

• Plant life uses energy from the sun to make food.

• Insects like grasshoppers eat plant life.

• Animals like rats eat insects.

• Humans eat large animals and plant life.

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What do we call an animal that gets eaten in a food chain?

• prey

• predator

• producer

• consumer

What is the role of decomposers in the food chain?

• to consume plants and animals

• to produce food using energy from the sun

• to eat decaying matter and return nutrients to the soil

• to hunt prey

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Aardvarks eat termites. Aardvarks are termites' ________.

• consumers

• producers

• prey

• predators

How do consumers get energy from a food chain to live?

• They make their own food from the soil.

• They break down decaying matter.

• They make their own food from the sun.

• They eat other plants and animals.

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Every living thing, or organism, needs energy in order to live—including you! Every time an animal runs, jumps or does anything, it uses energy. Animals get energy from the food they eat.

A food chain shows who's eating what. It's a sequence that tells us how living things are connected through the food they eat. A plant or animal gives energy to, or gets energy from, the plants or animals connected to it.

Which of these organisms needs energy to live?

• a mouse

• a maple tree

• a person

• all of the above

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Humans are at the top of the food chain. Why? Because we don't have many predators, or animals that eat us. A predator is an animal that is hunting another animal. So when a lion hunts an antelope, that lion is a predator. Prey is an animal that is being hunted. An antelope is a lion's prey.

Sometimes an animal can be both a predator and a prey. How? Check out the following food chain example:

PLANT < GRASSHOPPER < RAT < SNAKE

When a rat eats a grasshopper, the rat is the predator. But when a snake eats the rat, the rat is the prey.

Which of the following is a rat’s predator?

• grasshopper

• plant

• rat

• snake

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Plants are called producers. This is because they produce their own food. They do this using photosynthesis. Producers are the largest part of any food chain. They are also at the bottom.

Animals are consumers. They do not make their own food. They need to eat plants or animals to live. Consumers are divided into three different groups, depending on what they eat. An herbivore is an animal that only eats plants. Chipmunks, deer and butterflies are herbivores. A carnivore is an animal that only eats other animals. Tigers, wolves and spiders are carnivores. An omnivore is an animal that eats both plants and other animals. Both bears and people are omnivores.

In the food chain, all animals are

• decomposers.

• omnivores.

• consumers.

• producers.

In addition to producers and consumers, there are decomposers. Bacteria and fungi are decomposers. They eat decaying matter (dead plants and animals) and in the process, they break them down or decompose them.

Most animals are part of more than one food chain. There are lots of different food chains and all together these form a food web. A food web is a map that shows how all living things are connected.

Which of these is an example of a decomposer at work?

• A tree dies in the forest and organisms break down the wood until it’s gone.

• A bear needs lots of nutrients in the summer so that it can hibernate all winter.

• A person eats a sandwich and throws away the scraps.

• A little fish eats plankton and then a bigger fish eats the little fish.

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