Foodweb: The Flow Of Energy
By: John Gleason
Food Chain:
A food chain is a group of different living things, each of which feeds on the one below it. The arrows indicate the flow of energy, starting with the sun and continuing on to a human. A food chain is limited because a chain doesn't branch like a web would.

Food Webs:
A food web is the interlocking food chains within a community. A producer is a plant, which produces its own food. A first level consumer is an herbivore. A second level consumer is a carnivore. In a food chain the relationships are very linear, but in a food web it all branches out. For instance, A human could eat a cow, but it could also eat a plant. With a food chain you couldn't show that.

The Delicate Balance of Organisms:
If the population of one spiecies of animals decreases, than a chain reaction occours and the food chain/web is severly damaged. For instance if a herbivore speicies became decreases its population, than there would be an over-population of producers, and the carnivores that eat that herbivore would have to find something else to eat or die. If a scavenger spiecies decreases in population than the world would be full of dead bodies.
 
{Home Page} {Producers} {Food Webs} {Herbivores}
{Carnivores} {Omnivores} {Scavengers} {Conservation}
<<<Return to Student Web Sites