Written by Dhruv Girish
Our planet is made up of millions of different plants and animals working together to keep the world running. Have you ever wondered how nature is connected together? Well, scientists have taken this natural dependence and studied this for ages, and now we call it the Food Chain. A food chain is a system that allows us to see how different organisms depend on each other for food. There is always a system in which a food chain follows; we can =think of them as links on a chain.
Without one of the links, the chain breaks, and can no longer be supported. Vise versa, if are too many of one of the organisms (either the producers or the consumers) they too can disrupt the ecosystem (a biological community of different organisms working together).
There are many parts to the links on a food chain, but scientists have classified them into three main groups:
Producers- An example of a producer are plants. The reason they are called “producers” is because they make their own food with the process called photosynthesis (check out our previous blog for more info on photosynthesis). In one sentence, photosynthesis involves converting the sun, water, and nutrients in the soil into usable energy. This is where the energy comes from!
Consumers- Animals and humans are great examples of consumers. They do not make their own energy but instead, eat other animals or plants to get their energy. A herbivore eats plants to get their energy, while secondary consumers like carnivores eat other animals to get their energy. When a carnivore eats another carnivore we call it a tertiary consumer (apex predators, because they are at the top of the food chain). When animals do both, eat plants and animals, and we call them omnivores.
Decomposers- A decomposer takes dead matter (including plants and animals) and breaks them down. This process of breaking down old matter helps to bring back nutrients into the soil to start back up the process of the food chain. Now other producers, like plants, can take it up to produce food for itself and continue the next round of the cycle. There are many examples including worms, bacteria, and fungi (like mushrooms).
Food chains are not always that easy! When we go through a food chain, some energy is lost to
the environment as heat. As a result, as you move farther down the chain, less and less energy is available to consumers.
We can further classify different organisms using trophic levels, there are a total of five trophic levels that scientists categorize organisms with.
Level 1: Producers - ex. trees, a rosebush, a flower
Level 2: Primary consumers (herbivores) - ex. rabbits, deer, small fish
Level 3: Secondary consumers or carnivores (animals that eat herbivores) - fox, frogs
Level 4: Tertiary consumers and carnivores (eat other carnivores) - hawks, snakes
Level 5: Apex predators (top of the food chain, nothing eats those organisms) - lions, hyenas, panthers
In conclusion, these organisms work together to unify the ecosystem in many ways. This dependence on these animals helps to keep the environment alive, the ecosystem is also composed of many working food chains that also interconnect to make a more complex and intertwined food chain, which scientists also call a food web. food chains are the basis of our world, and without it we would not be able to have such diverse ecosystems.
Sources
“Ecosystem Pyramid.” Energy Pyramid, www.pinterest.com/pin/543457880028090245.
“Food Chain.” Food Chain, Trophic Levels and Flow of Energy in Ecosystem, www.onlinebiologynotes.com/food-chain-trophic-levels-and-flow-of-energy-in-ecosystem
“Science for Kids: Food Chain and Web.” Ducksters, www.ducksters.com/science/ecosystems/food_chain_and_web.php. Accessed 10 Feb. 2021.
Wikipedia contributors. “Ecosystem.” Wikipedia, 7 Jan. 2021, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecosystem.