The food chain is a linear sequence of organisms in which nutrients and energy are transferred from one organism to another. This occurs when one organism consumes another organism. It starts with the producing organism, follows the chain and ends with the decomposing organism. A food chain shows how every living thing obtains its food.
Some animals eat plants and some animals eat other animals. For example, a simple food chain links trees and shrubs, giraffes (which feed on trees and shrubs) and lions (who eat giraffes). Each link in this chain is food for the next link. All food chains start with energy from the Sun.
This energy is captured by plants. Therefore, the living part of a food chain always begins with plant life and ends with an animal. Most animals are part of more than one food chain and eat more than one type of food to meet their food and energy needs. Grass (producer) Deer (herbivore) Lion (carnivore) (b) Interconnected food chains that operate in an ecosystem and that establish a network of relationships between several species form a food web.
First demonstrate a food chain, a simple interdependence, linking the student with the solar card (the source of all energy) to the student with the grass card to the student with the zebra card to the student with the lion card. Plants are called producers because they can use light energy from the Sun to produce food (sugar) from carbon dioxide and water. There can't be too many links in a single food chain because the animals at the end of the chain wouldn't get enough food (and therefore energy) to stay alive. These must then be intertwined and glued together to form a chain of species in which one eats the other.
These decomposers accelerate the decomposition process that returns mineral salts to the food chain for plants to absorb as nutrients. Finally, discuss decomposers: bacteria, fungi and worms that feed on decaying matter and their role in the food web. A) The sequence of living organisms in a community in which one organism consumes another organism to transfer food energy is called the food chain.
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