U8: Food Chains & Food Webs

Key Learning Points:

• A food chain shows the food relationship between organisms.
• A collection (connected together) of more than 1 food chain is call a food web.
• Plants are producers because they can make their own food.
• The rest of the organisms in the food web/chain are consumers - they consume or eat other organisms.
• All organisms obtain their energy either directly (like herbivores) or indirectly from plants.
• A prey is an animal that is being hunted or eaten by other animals.
• A predator is an animal that hunts or eats other animals.
• Herbivores are animals that eat plants only. All herbivores are preys.
• Carnivores are animals that eat animals only.
• Ominovores are animals that eat both plants and animals.
• Carnivores and omnivores can be both a prey or predator.
• All food chains/web are in balance. The producers form the largest population.
• Removing or introducing organisms into a food chain/web can cause an imbalance, thereby may result in extinction of certain groups of organisms.
• At the tail end of a food chain/web, the population of that organism is the smallest.
• Example: Grass ==> Grasshoppers ==> Chickens ==> Snake (You'll expect grass to have the biggest population while the snake to have the smallest population.)