The food chain describes who eats whom in the wild. Every living thing—from one-celled algae to behemothic blue whales—needs food to survive. Each food chain is a possible pathway that free energy and nutrients can follow through the ecosystem.

For case, grass produces its own food from sunlight. A rabbit eats the grass. A play a joke on eats the rabbit. When the fox dies, bacteria pause downward its trunk, returning it to the soil where it provides nutrients for plants like grass.

Of course, many different animals eat grass, and rabbits can consume other plants likewise grass. Foxes, in turn, can eat many types of animals and plants. Each of these living things tin can be a office of multiple food chains. All of the interconnected and overlapping nutrient chains in an ecosystem make up a food web.

Trophic Levels

Organisms in food chains are grouped into categories called trophic levels. Roughly speaking, these levels are divided into producers (start trophic level), consumers (second, third, and fourth trophic levels), and decomposers.

Producers, also known as autotrophs, brand their own food. They brand up the offset level of every food concatenation. Autotrophs are usually plants or one-celled organisms. Well-nigh all autotrophs employ a procedure chosen photosynthesis to create "food" (a nutrient called glucose) from sunlight, carbon dioxide, and h2o.

Plants are the about familiar type of autotroph, just there are many other kinds. Algae, whose larger forms are known every bit seaweed, are autotrophic. Phytoplankton, tiny organisms that live in the ocean, are also autotrophs. Some types of bacteria are autotrophs. For example, bacteria living in active volcanoes use sulfur compounds to produce their own nutrient. This process is chosen chemosynthesis.

The second trophic level consists of organisms that eat the producers. These are called primary consumers, or herbivores. Deer, turtles, and many types of birds are herbivores. Secondary consumers eat the herbivores. Tertiary consumers eat the secondary consumers. There may be more levels of consumers before a chain finally reaches its acme predator. Top predators, besides chosen noon predators, swallow other consumers.

Consumers can be carnivores (animals that swallow other animals) or omnivores (animals that eat both plants and animals). Omnivores, like people, consume many types of foods. People eat plants, such as vegetables and fruits. We also swallow animals and animal products, such as meat, milk, and eggs. We consume fungi, such as mushrooms. We as well eat algae, in edible seaweeds like nori (used to wrap sushi rolls) and bounding main lettuce (used in salads).

Detritivores and decomposers are the final part of food chains. Detritivores are organisms that eat nonliving plant and animal remains. For instance, scavengers such as vultures eat dead animals. Dung beetles eat animal feces.

Decomposers like fungi and bacteria consummate the food chain. They turn organic wastes, such as decaying plants, into inorganic materials, such as nutrient-rich soil. Decomposers complete the cycle of life, returning nutrients to the soil or oceans for utilise by autotrophs. This starts a whole new food concatenation.

Food Chains

Different habitats and ecosystems provide many possible food chains that make up a food web.

In one marine nutrient chain, single-celled organisms called phytoplankton provide food for tiny shrimp called krill. Krill provide the principal nutrient source for the blue whale, an brute on the third trophic level.

In a grassland ecosystem, a grasshopper might eat grass, a producer. The grasshopper might get eaten past a rat, which in turn is consumed by a snake. Finally, a hawk—an noon predator—swoops down and snatches up the snake.

In a pond, the autotroph might exist algae. A musquito larva eats the algae, and and so perhaps a dragonfly larva eats the young mosquito. The dragonfly larva becomes food for a fish, which provides a tasty meal for a raccoon.

Food Chain

The heron and the fish are links in the food chain.

Carnivorous . . . Plants?
Virtually plants on Globe take energy from the sun and nutrients from the soil. A few plants, nevertheless, become their nutrients from animals. These carnivorous plants include pitcher plants, Venus flytraps, and bladderworts. These plants attract and trap preyusually insectsand then pause them downward with digestive enzymes.

Links in the Chain
Organisms swallow nutrients from a diversity of unlike sources in the food concatenation.

  • Xylophages eat forest. Termites and bark beetles are xylophages.
  • Coprophages swallow animal carrion. Dung beetles and flies are coprophages.
  • Geophages eat earth, such as clay or soil. Parrots and cockatoos are geophages.
  • Palynivores eat pollen. Honeybees and some butterflies are palynivores.
  • Lepidophages are fish that swallow the scales (but non the torso) of other fish. Some piranha and some catfish are lepidophages.
  • Mucophages eat mucus. Normally, these tiny organisms alive in the gills of fish.

algae

Plural Noun

(singular: alga) diverse grouping of aquatic organisms, the largest of which are seaweeds.

noon predator

Substantive

species at the superlative of the food chain, with no predators of its own. Also chosen an alpha predator or elevation predator.

Substantive

organism that tin produce its own food and nutrients from chemicals in the atmosphere, usually through photosynthesis or chemosynthesis.

Plural Noun

(singular: bacterium) single-celled organisms plant in every ecosystem on Earth.

blue whale

Noun

species of marine mammal that is the largest animal to have ever lived.

carbon dioxide

Noun

greenhouse gas produced by animals during respiration and used past plants during photosynthesis. Carbon dioxide is also the byproduct of burning fossil fuels.

Noun

organism that eats meat.

chemosynthesis

Substantive

procedure by which some microbes turn carbon dioxide and water into carbohydrates using energy obtained from inorganic chemical reactions.

consumer

Noun

organism on the food chain that depends on autotrophs (producers) or other consumers for food, nutrition, and energy.

decay

Verb

to rot or decompose.

decomposer

Substantive

organism that breaks down dead organic textile; too sometimes referred to as detritivores

detritivore

Noun

organism that consumes dead plant material.

Substantive

community and interactions of living and nonliving things in an area.

edible

Adjective

able to exist eaten and digested.

energy

Substantive

capacity to do work.

feces

Plural Noun

waste material cloth produced past the living torso of an organism.

Noun

grouping of organisms linked in social club of the food they consume, from producers to consumers, and from prey, predators, scavengers, and decomposers.

Noun

all related food chains in an ecosystem. Also called a food cycle.

fungi

Plural Substantive

(atypical: mucus) organisms that survive past decomposing and absorbing nutrients in organic material such as soil or expressionless organisms.

glucose

Noun

"simple sugar" chemical produced by many plants during photosynthesis.

grassland

Substantive

ecosystem with large, flat areas of grasses.

Noun

organism that eats mainly plants and other producers.

krill

Noun

modest marine crustacean, similar to shrimp.

larva

Noun

a new or immature insect or other type of invertebrate.

nori

Substantive

red algae that is frequently dried and used to wrap sushi.

Noun

substance an organism needs for free energy, growth, and life.

Substantive

organism that eats a variety of organisms, including plants, animals, and fungi.

Noun

process by which plants turn h2o, sunlight, and carbon dioxide into water, oxygen, and uncomplicated sugars.

phytoplankton

Noun

microscopic organism that lives in the ocean and tin can catechumen light free energy to chemical free energy through photosynthesis.

plant

Noun

organism that produces its own food through photosynthesis and whose cells have walls.

primary consumer

Noun

organism that eats producers; herbivores.

producer

Noun

organism on the food chain that can produce its own energy and nutrients. Also called an autotroph.

Noun

organism that eats expressionless or rotting biomass, such every bit animate being flesh or plant cloth.

sea lettuce

Noun

seaweed with large, flat leaves.

seaweed

Noun

marine algae. Seaweed can exist composed of brown, light-green, or red algae, as well as "bluish-greenish algae," which is really bacteria.

secondary consumer

Noun

organism that eats meat.

sulfur

Noun

chemical element with the symbol S.

sushi

Noun

seize with teeth-sized rolls or assurance of sticky rice topped with seafood or vegetables.

tertiary consumer

Noun

carnivore that mostly eats other carnivores.

top predator

Noun

species at the peak of the nutrient chain, with no predators of its ain. Also called an alpha predator or apex predator.

trophic level

Substantive

one of 3 positions on the food concatenation: autotrophs (showtime), herbivores (2d), and carnivores and omnivores (third).

Noun

an opening in the World'due south crust, through which lava, ash, and gases erupt, and also the cone built by eruptions.

  • Credits

    Media Credits

    The audio, illustrations, photos, and videos are credited beneath the media asset, except for promotional images, which generally link to another folio that contains the media credit. The Rights Holder for media is the person or grouping credited.

    Writers

    Kim Rutledge
    Tara Ramroop
    Diane Boudreau
    Melissa McDaniel
    Santani Teng
    Erin Sprout
    Hilary Costa
    Hilary Hall
    Jeff Hunt

    Illustrators

    Mary Crooks, National Geographic Gild
    Tim Gunther

    Editors

    Jeannie Evers, Emdash Editing
    Kara West

    Educator Reviewer

    Nancy Wynne

    Producer

    Caryl-Sue, National Geographic Society

    Sources

    Dunn, Margery Yard. (Editor). (1989, 1993). "Exploring Your World: The Adventure of Geography." Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society.

    Concluding Updated

    Jan. 21, 2011

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