Food chain and Food web in an Ecosystem

 Food chain and Food web in an Ecosystem

 Food chain

Simple food chain

 The producers, consumers and decomposers are connected in the ecosystem where one organism eats another which, in turn, is eaten by the the third one.

 This sequence in which a producer is eaten by a herbivore  and the herbivores is preyed upon by a carnivore is called food chain.

For  example a deer eats grass and is eaten by lion,Tiger or leopard.Here  grass is producer, deer primary consumer (herbivore) and lion or tiger secondary consumer (carnivore) this is an example of simple food chain.

 In bigger food chain, a carnivore (secondary consumer)is further eaten by another bigger carnivore (tertiary consumers).

 For example, a grasshopper feeds upon plants which is eaten by a frog (secondary consumer) and the frog is preyed upon by hawk (tertiary consumer).

   Food web 

Food Web

 food web is a complex feeding system.In  a food web several food chains are interlinked. In a forest many interlinked food chains exist. In case one food chain is disturbed, the Other food chain is there to support the animals of next feeding level.

 Energy flow in a food chain 

iIn a food chain, each link provides food for the next link. When an animal eat the plant food energy is transferred from the plant to the animal.

 Some other animal eats that animal and in turn another animal eats that animal, with energy being transfer and used up at each step in the chain.

The movement of energy from the Sun,passing from one organism to another is called energy flow.

Energy is transferred along food chains from one stage to the next.