Organisms represented in Food Chains / Food Webs.

1. Organisms represented inFood Chains / Food Webs.

2. Food Chains • A food chain shows how each living thing gets its food. • Each link in this chain is food for the next link. • A food chain always starts with plant life and ends with an animal.

3. Autotrophs Producers Organisms which can synthesise their own complex, energy rich, organic molecules from simple inorganic molecules (e.g. green plants synthesis sugars from CO2 and H2O)

4. Heterotrophs Consumers Organisms who must obtain complex, energy rich, organic compounds from the bodies of other organisms (dead or alive)

5. Herbivores Plant Eaters • a.k.a Primary Consumers

6. Carnivores Meat Eaters • 2oSecondary Consumers eat herbivores • 3o and 4oTertiary and Quadinary Consumers eat other carnivores

8. Omnivore

9. Scavenger Prey on dead organisms

10. Decomposers Heterotrophic organisms who secrete digestive enzymes onto dead organism matter and absorb the digested material. (e.g. fungi, bacteria)

11. Detritivores Heterotrophic organisms who ingest dead organic matter. (e.g. earthworms, woodlice, millipedes)

13. Bushgrass---> Impala ---> Cheetah----> Lion

14. TROPHIC LEVELS: The different feeding level of organisms in an ecosystem are called tropic level. Producers make the first tropic level in all ecosystem. PYRAMIDS OF NUMBERS

15. The passage of energy in one way direction in an ecosystem is known as energy flow. Buckwheat ---> Gopher ---> Gopher snake ----> Red Tailed Kite

16. Food Webs • Most consumers feed on many different species in order to meet their energy requirements. • A food web is a series of related food chains displaying the movement of energy and matter through an ecosystem.

17. Food Webs Identify the: Producers  Primary Consumers  Secondary Consumers  Herbivores  Carnivores  Omnivores  What elements are missing from this food web?