Rainforest Food Webs
Explain how feeding chains connect into a rainforest food web. Identify producers, consumers and decomposers. Follow energy through food and distinguish this flow from nutrients being recycled through soil and living things.
What a learner can do afterwards
- Arrange a three-level rainforest food chain from given feeding relationships, and explain how a shared living thing connects food chains into a food web
- Explain the role of decomposers in breaking down dead material and returning nutrients to the soil
- Use the terms producer, consumer, and decomposer correctly
1 · Read
You know rainforest plants and animals. Plants such as fig trees use sunlight to make their own food. They are producers. Consumers get food from other living things or their remains. Herbivores eat plants. Predators hunt animals. A food chain follows food and energy from one living thing to another.
In this chain, the fruit-eating monkey is a primary consumer: it eats food from a producer. The jaguar is a secondary consumer: it eats that primary consumer. Both are consumers. These names describe their roles in this chain. An animal that eats different foods can have different roles in other chains.
Fungi and bacteria are decomposers. They get food by breaking down dead material and wastes. Some insects help by chewing dead material into smaller pieces. Breakdown releases nutrients into the soil. Roots can take up nutrients as plants grow.
Food webs connect food chains. To join chains, find a living thing that appears in both. Keep all of its feeding links. The shared living thing can be a producer or a consumer. Chains do not need the same producer to connect.
Nutrients can be used again as plants grow and animals eat. Energy follows a different path. Plants use sunlight to make food. Food passes energy to consumers, including decomposers. Living things release energy as heat. Nutrients cycle, but energy eventually leaves the food web as heat.
To build a chain, start with the producer. Put the animal that eats it next. Then put an animal that eats that plant eater. Check every link against the stated meals. Read the chain from food to eater. An arrow, if used, points the same way.
Read the roles from left to right. Check each feeding link before joining it to the next.
Food webs connect feeding paths. Producers make food. Consumers obtain food from other living things. Decomposers help recycle nutrients, while energy eventually leaves as heat.
Rainforest food-web teaching, questions and flashcards written for this dataset.
The four readings were written for this dataset. The linked lesson, Dead stuff: The secret ingredient in our food chain - John C. Moore, is from TED-Ed.
More to read
A tree can feed several animals
A monkey eats fruit from a tree. A jaguar may hunt that monkey. This gives us one feeding chain.
A toucan may eat fruit from the same tree. Its feeding path shares the tree with the monkey's path. Connected paths form part of a food web.
If you draw feeding arrows, point each arrow from the food toward the eater. The arrow follows energy supplied by food. It does not point toward the animal's next meal.
A chain follows one path. A web helps us follow several connected paths.
Two different paths through a forest
A fallen leaf contains nutrients. Fungi and bacteria break down the leaf and release nutrients into its surroundings. Roots can take up nutrients from soil. Those nutrients may become part of a growing plant and later an animal.
Energy takes a different path. Sunlight supplies energy to plants. Food carries energy from plants to consumers. Decomposers also obtain energy from their food.
Living things release energy as heat. Nutrients can be used again, but energy eventually leaves the food web as heat. This is why a forest needs a continuing energy supply.
Food for growing and moving
Food supplies material for growth and energy for activities. A monkey obtains food by eating fruit and other foods. A jaguar obtains food by eating animals.
A fig tree makes its own food using sunlight. Roots supply water and nutrients, but do not collect a ready-made meal from the soil.
Producer and consumer describe food sources. The tree is a producer because it makes food. The monkey and jaguar are consumers because they obtain food from other living things.
Feeding roles do not count animals
In a chain beginning with a plant, an animal eating that plant's food is a primary consumer. An animal eating the primary consumer is a secondary consumer.
These roles depend on the feeding path. An animal eating different foods can appear at different levels in different paths.
A feeding chain does not tell us how many individuals live in a forest. One large tree may feed several animals. Following meals and counting organisms are different tasks. We cannot conclude that every forest has fewer plant eaters than individual plants.
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2 · Watch
به انگلیسیTake it off screen
Where it sits
Where this leads
Jobs that lean on this skill. Follow one to see everything it is built on.
8 questions wait behind this lesson, each with its answer explained. Every answer feeds the sky: stars light as they are learned, and dim when it is time to come back.