Food Chains

and

Webs

Name: _______________ Teacher: __________

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Food Chains

All organisms use food to get the energy they need for living.
Green plants can make their own food by photosynthesis. They are called Producers.
Animals and non–green plants cannot make their own food. They have to rely on ready made
food (green plants or other animals). They are called Consumers.
Primary Consumers or Herbivores feed mainly on green plants.
Secondary Consumers or Carnivores feed on animals that have eaten green plants.
An Omnivore is an animal that feeds on both plant and animal material.
Some of the terms used in this field of Biology overlap. The word Predator is used to describe
an animal that hunts and eats other animals. Predators are obviously also Consumers!
A Decomposer is an organism such as a fungus or bacteria which feeds on dead organisms and
play an important part in breaking down their bodies and releasing useful nutrients from them –
these materials can be re-used by other organisms such as when plants take them in through their
roots from the soil.

The Flow of Energy from the Sun to a producer and on to a consumer is called a Food Chain.
The arrows show the direction of Energy Transfer.

The Sun

Green Plant Herbivore Carnivore

(Producer) (Primary Consumer) (Secondary Consumer)

Use the information from the box above to help you complete the table below.
The first example has been completed for you.

Food Chain terms and their meanings

Term Meaning

Producer Green plants that make their own food by photosynthesis.

Consumer

Primary Consumer /
Herbivore

Secondary Consumer /
Carnivore

Omnivore
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Predator

Decomposer

Food Chain

1. From where do all producers get their energy? _______________________________

2. Complete the table below to show examples of herbivores, carnivores and omnivores:

Herbivores Carnivores Omnivores

Predator and Prey

Now you know what is meant by a Predator complete the following questions using the
information from the simple food chain below (Prey are the animals that are eaten by
Predators).

SUN CABBAGE CATERPILLAR ROBIN SPARROWHAWK

1. Which animal is the predator of the caterpillar? ________________________

2. Which animal is the prey of the sparrow hawk? ________________________

3. On the next page match the predators to their prey (4 pairs):

Cheetah, frog, fly, gazelle, polar bear, robin, seal, earthworm

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_____________________________ _______________________________

_____________________________ _______________________________

_____________________________ _______________________________

_____________________________ _______________________________

Pest Organisms

Many animals, both primary consumers and predators can affect farmers & gardeners by
either eating or damaging their crops. Examples of such pests include Aphids, Slugs, and
Mice & Rats. In some parts of India entire fields of crops get destroyed by Cane Rats
before the farmers can get their harvest in. This has become a much bigger problem in
areas where Cobras (snakes which feed on the rats) have been reduced in numbers. The
government is now trying to take action to protect the Cobras, which - although they kill
some people with their venomous bite - save millions of people from starving by keeping
down the numbers of Cane Rats and other pests.

Task (Homework or Research in class):

1. Write a brief account of 3 different pest organisms, how they affect crop yields and
what methods are used to control the pests. Do this on A4 paper or in your exercise
book under a suitable heading – check with your teacher regarding presentation.
2. What is meant by a pesticide? Give at least two named examples and what they
are used for.
3. The Cobra example above is an example of natural biological control. Try to find
at least 2 more examples of where humans either encourage or deliberately use
biological control methods to keep pest numbers down.

Energy Loss in Food Chains

Here is a food chain with four organisms in it:

Rosebush Greenfly Wall Lizard Kestrel

Food chains rarely have more than four links. This is because not all the energy from one
step is passed on to the next organism in the chain. Most of the useful energy is lost, in
fact often 90% is lost – meaning that for every 100 units of energy in the food that is eaten
by a herbivore (greenfly above) only 10 units gets passed on to the secondary consumer
(wall lizard) and only 1 unit will reach the Kestrel. This explains many things in biology.
Predators at the top of food chains get only a tiny fraction of the food from the original
producers and so such things as Eagles and other large predators can never be common.
A pair of Eagles in central Spain will need to hunt over hundreds of square kilometres to
get sufficient energy to survive! Can you see why?
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So where does the lost energy go?

In Physics you learn that energy cannot be created or destroyed, so where does the “lost”
energy go?
Well, you should also know that energy can be converted into different forms. The missing
energy doesn’t really disappear – it gets converted into non–useful forms and so doesn’t
reach the next organism.

Remember these 3 ways in which an organism loses energy:

1. As heat.

2. Through movement of its body.

3. Through passing out waste materials.

Obviously this reduces the amount of energy that continues through the food chain. The
further you go along the food chain the less energy is left and the number of animals gets
smaller and smaller.

Wheat Mouse Owl

A simple way to show this is with a pyramid of numbers:

10 Owls
Numbers
decrease

100 Mice

1000 Wheat Plants

Extension question:

When might a pyramid of numbers not be this shape? Can you think of an example of a
food chain where a small number of organisms (maybe just one!) is enough food for a
much larger number of organisms?
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Your own Food Energy Chains

Taking your diet for a typical day, draw up at least 3 food energy chains beginning in each
case with energy from the Sun – until it reaches you via the food you eat. For each chain,
show the approximate percentage energy that is lost and that which is passed on through
the chain. Unless you are vegetarian, you should include at least one animal product in
each of your chain diagrams.

A scientific argument for being vegetarian:

Many people choose to be vegetarian for religious or other reasons. One scientific reason
for being vegetarian is that if we consider that only about 10% of the energy from each
level in a food chain passes on along the chain, then we should not be growing crops to
feed to farm animals – we could feed, in theory at least, 10 times as many people on crops
as we can by eating meat! Can you see why?

Food Webs
In reality, simple straight food chains are rarely found. Most animals eat several different
things. A better way to show this is by connecting up all these tangled up food chains to
make a much more realistic Food Web.
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Construct your own food web
Look at the information in the table below. It shows what eats what in a garden pond.

Organism Type What it eats

Algae Plant
Pond Snail Animal Algae
Blood Worm Animal Algae
Frog Animal Blood Worm, Pond Snails
Leech Animal Frogs, Pond Snails
Heron Animal Frogs, Pond Snails

Use this information to help you construct your own food web in the space below, you do
not need to draw the organisms, just write their names, correctly organising them in space
and use a ruler to draw the arrows in the correct places. (Plan on rough paper first).
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Blood worm
(midge larva)
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More on Food Webs:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/biology/livingthingsenvironment/1feedingrelationshipsrev1.shtml

Try to visit the above website, read the information and try the Test Bite at the end. How
well did you do?

http://www.gould.edu.au/foodwebs/kids_web.htm

The above site is really fun – see how fast you can complete all 4 activities! If you want to
really impress your teacher print the page when you’ve completed it - use the Print
Screen button on your keyboard then use ctr+V to paste the picture into a graphic
program – even MS Paint will do if you don’t have anything fancy!

A warning for Mankind:

Look back through some of the food webs you’ve seen or constructed, you should see that
all organisms are interdependent upon one another – if one species becomes extinct,
others can increase dramatically in numbers – or they in turn may become endangered or
extinct. Then this will affect other organisms through the web. There are numerous
examples from nature where Human beings have seriously affected the numbers of many
organisms by their influence on food webs. Sometimes reducing the numbers of a predator
can result in huge increases in numbers of pest species (remember the Cobras in India).
Scientists now consider Nature Conservation to be much more important than just saving
the “cuddly, furry pandas”.

The important role of Decomposers

You will need:

A suitable sealable* transparent container

A piece of bread or fruit
A hand lens

* Use sticky tape all around the lid

Put a small piece of bread or fruit into your container, seal the container and leave it where
it will not be disturbed. Check the food daily, noting any changes.

After some days or maybe a week or two depending upon temperature etc you will begin
to see colonies of mould (fungi) growing on the food. Use the hand lens to take a closer
look but DO NOT OPEN THE SEALED CONTAINER!

There may be other kinds of decomposers present on the food: Moulds / Fungi usually
appear as tiny “furry” patches while bacteria look like little slimy blobs. Each bacterium is
far too small to see on its own – you will be looking at a colony of literally millions of them!
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Decomposers play an important part in recycling nutrients in food webs. Think about it,
without them, uncountable numbers of dead organisms would just be lying around and
slowly the food webs would run short of a vital source of nutrients. These organisms are
vital for life on this planet!

Many farmers and gardeners make compost heaps – mounds of decomposing organic
material. This is called composting. The compost is a useful material, full of nutrients to
help enrich the soil and improve plant growth. Long lists of items can be safely composted.

Research:

(Write up in exercise books or A4 – ask your teacher)

1. Make 2 lists (at least ten items on each list). One list of items that are suitable for
composting and the other of items which are unsuitable and cannot be composted.
2. Find out what conditions (temperature, humidity etc etc) are best for composting
and which conditions are unsuitable.
3. Research your own family’s rubbish disposal. What kind of percentage of your
rubbish is biodegradable and how much is non-biodegradable? Do you recycle or
put rubbish in separate containers (paper, clothing, plastics, glass etc)?

Population Growth

Many plants produce hundreds of thousands of seeds and some fish lay tens of thousands
of eggs. Yet there are not huge populations of these organisms. Salmon for example are
very rare in many parts of the world despite laying hundreds of thousands of eggs.

It is clear that only a very tiny fraction of these seeds or eggs survive to become adult
organisms and go on to reproduce themselves. There are many reasons for this.

The human population of Marbella is the total number of people living in Marbella. The
population of rabbits on a farm is the total number of rabbits living on the farm.

The growth of a population depends on the number of individuals being born (the birth
rate) and the number of individuals dying (the death rate) in a period of time.

Look at the following table showing the number of rabbits born and dying in woodland over
a period of three years:

Year Number born Number dying

1990 120 100
1991 108 87
1992 97 93
Total

Fill in the total values.

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Is the population of rabbits growing or falling? _________________________________

In general, a population grows in size when the_______________________ rate is greater

than the ___________________ rate.

The size of a population falls when the ___________________ rate is greater than the

___________________ rate.

A population stays steady when ______________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________

The diagram below shows some factors which can affect the growth of a rabbit population

Here’s a simple shockwave game where you have to try to increase a population of
rabbits (sorry no prizes):

http://www.lgfl.net/lgfl/leas/greenwich/accounts/subjects/ictteam/Resources/QCA%20Lesson%20Plans/3d%
20simulations/Support%20Files/rabbits.swf

You will look at this principle in more detail in the next unit of biology.
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Human Population

Use the figures in the table below to draw a line graph to show how the human population
of the world has grown over the last 300 years.

Year Population (millions)

1700 800
1750 900
1800 1000
1850 1100
1900 1800
1950 3000
2000 6000

horizontal axis = time in years vertical axis = world population (millions)

1. Write down the relationship between population size and time.

________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________

2. Can you suggest how we might stop or at least slow down the rapid growth of the
human population?

________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________

3. Describe some of the reasons why our population growth rate has become so rapid.

________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________

4. Describe some of the major problems we face if we do not control our population
growth?

________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________