Ch 6 Energy in Ecosystems Vocabulary producer consumer

Ch. 6: Energy in Ecosystems Vocabulary: producer, consumer, herbivore, carnivore, omnivore, decomposer, food chain, food web, energy pyramid

Producers, Consumers, and Decomposers • Energy for all living things comes from the sun. • But only a few organisms can access it directly. • All living things are categorized by how they get energy. • Living things get their energy by making their own food using sunlight are called producers. • Living things that get their energy by eating other living things are called consumers. • Living things that get their energy from eating dead plants and animals are called decomposers.

Producers • Producers are also called plants. • Plants are the only organisms that are able to make their own food using sunlight.

Consumers • All animals are consumers. • They are unable to make their own food using sunlight. • Consumers are broken into three different groups: – Herbivores: Only Eat Plants – Carnivores: Only Eat Other Animals – Omnivores: Eat Both Plants and Animals » Herbivore » Carnivore » Omnivore

Decomposers • Most scientists agree that decomposers are at the bottom of every food chain. • They take the leftovers of dead plants and animals and their poo and break them down into nutrients that plants can get out of the soil. • Some examples of decomposers are insects, bacteria and fungi.

Food Chains • Food chains are the paths that energy follows from one organism to another.

Food Chains • All the food energy on Earth comes from the sun. • Producers take sunlight and change it into chemical energy that they can use. • Consumers eat the producers, or other consumers and take their energy from them. • Decomposers eat what is left over and return the nutrients to the soil. • Except for producers, all the living things on Earth get energy from other living things.

Food Webs • Food chains are simple ways to show the energy from the sun travels from organism to organism, but usually there is not one predator for every prey. • In order to show energy moves in an ecosystem scientists have developed the food web by linking many food chains together.

Energy Pyramids • Remember, all the energy for the living things on Earth comes from the sun. • An energy pyramid shows how that energy is lost as it passes from producers to consumers. • Producers use most of their energy to survive, they only pass some that they make up to the next level of the pyramid that eats them. • The bottom always contains the producers, and the top always contains the most efficient predators in an ecosystem. • Because of the energy pyramid higher level carnivores and omnivores need to eat more food than lower level prey and producers in order to survive.

Questions about Chapter 6 1. Of the five different types of organisms presented in chapter 6, name the four types of consumers. 2. Where do producers get the energy they need? 3. Draw a food chain that contains 4 links. 4. What group of living things makes up the bottom level of the energy pyramid?