Energy flow
OBJECTIVES
Define a food chain
Construct simple food chains.
Define a food web.
Define producer, consumer, herbivore,
carnivore and decomposer.
KEYWORDS
Environment
Energy flow
Food chain
Food web
Producer
Herbivore
Carnivore
Decomposer
Sun is the principal source of energy
input to biological systems.
Photosynthetic plants trap light energy
from the sun and convert it to chemical
energy which is used by other
organisms and eventually transferred
to the environment.
Food Chain
A food chain shows the transfer of
energy from one organism to the
next, beginning with a producer.
Energy is transferred between
organisms in a food chain by
feeding relationship.
A food chain usually starts with a
photosynthetic plant, which gains its
energy from the Sun.
The arrows used to link each organism
to the next represent the direction of
energy flow. They always point towards
the ‘eater’, and away from the plant.
Food chains – who eats what?
Can you see a food chain in this habitat?
Food chains
A food chain is a sequence that shows how each individual feeds
on the organism below it in the chain. Each arrow means ‘eaten
by’.
leaf caterpillar bird fox
What does this food chain show?
A leaf is eaten by a caterpillar, which is then eaten by a bird,
which is then eaten by a fox.
Energy is transferred from one organism to another in the
direction of the arrow.
Food chains – draw your own
Draw your own food chains based on the following
guidelines:
A food chain from a forest habitat.
A food chain from an ocean habitat.
A food chain with four organisms in it.
A food chain that ends with you!
Use arrows ( ) to show the
transfer of energy between the
organisms that you choose.
An Antarctic food chain
Producer, herbivore or carnivore?
Food chains always start with a producer.
If the producer is a plant, only a small part of it might be
involved in the food chain, such as its seeds, fruits, leaves
or even dead leaves.
From a food chain, we can tell if an organism is a producer, a
herbivore or a carnivore.
leaf snail bird owl
What are the feeding types of the animals in this food chain?
Name that feeding type
Ranking consumers
Consumers eat plants or animals, or both. A food chain can be used to rank
different types of consumers.
seaweed limpet crab human
producer primary secondary tertiary
consumer consumer consumer
Producers – make their own food.
Primary consumers – eat producers.
Secondary consumers – eat primary consumers.
Tertiary consumers – eat secondary consumers.
Primary, secondary or tertiary?
A food web is a network of interconnected
food chain.
What is a food web?
Why is it a good idea for an organism to have different
sources of food? Animals usually eat many different things
and are involved in lots of different food chains:
plants aphid ladybird blue tit owl
plants moth blue tit owl
plants vole stoat
plants vole owl
These food chains can be put together in a food web,
which shows how the food chains are connected.
What would the food web for these food chains look like?
Food webs
chiffchaff
owl stoat
bluetit
moth
spider
vole
ladybird
aphid plant
Using a food web
1. Name the producer in this
food web.
2. Name two herbivores in this
food web.
3. Name two species that are top
carnivores.
4. How many secondary
consumers are there?
5. Which food chains include
the moth?
Build a food web
Producer - an organism that make its own
organic nutrients, usually using energy
from sunlight, through photosynthesis.
Consumer - an organism that gets its
energy by feeding on other organisms.
Consumers may be classed as primary,
secondary and tertiary according to their
position in a food chain.
Herbivore - an animal that gets its
energy by eating plants
Carnivore - an animal that gets its
energy by eating other animals
Decomposer- an organism that gets
its energy from dead or waste organic
material
Explain the role of decomposers.
Trophic levels
Trophic level is the position of an
organism in a food chain or a food web,
The feeding level is known as the
trophic level.
PLENARY- Feeding Types
THE END
