What is a food chain?

Data / date: 09/07/11 1 comentario / 1 Comment

All living things get energy from their food so that they can move and grow. Food chains interlink several species that live in the same environment. Each species is linked to other by a basic need: food. One species can serve as food to other. It is the  food supplies the energy that keep the living being alive
Some animals eat plants and some animals eat other animals. For example, a simple food chain links the trees-shrubs-the giraffes-the lions: the giraffes eat trees anda shrubs and lions eat giraffes. Each link in this chain is food for the next link. A food chain always starts with plant life and ends with an animal, remember that!

The food chain is made by links. The first link is of vegetables which use the sunlight to produce food (sugar) from carbon dioxide and water. First to use the sunlight, they are called producers.

Animals can not produce their own food ant have to eat plants or other animals. They are called consumers. There are 3 groups of consumers:

  1. Herbivores (or primary consumers): animals that eat only plants.
  2. Carnivores: animals that eat other animals.                                       Secondary: eat  herbivores animals.                                                     Tertiary: eat other carnivore animals. For example, whales eat seals that eat small fishes that eat phytoplankton.
  3. Omnivores: animals that eat other animals or plants.

There is also the group of decomposers (bacteria and fungi) which feed on decaying matter. They have an important role because they speed up the decaying process that releases mineral salts back into the food chain ofr absortion of plants as nutrients.

Producers, consummers and decomposers are links of the food chain.

Several food chains are interlinked and form the web chains.

One Comment

  1. SherieBGaige says:
    Monday, June 6, 2016 at 6:05pm

    Good way of explaining, and pleasant article to take data concerning my presentation subject matter, which i am going to deliver
    in school.