Relationships in Ecosystems
- Producers are organisms that make their own food using sunlight energy
- these include green plants on land, and algae in the ocean, lakes and ponds
- consumers are organisms that cannot make their own food
- herbivores eat only plants, or producers (plant eaters)
- omnivores eat producers and consumers (bears, raccoons, opossums) (plant and meat eaters)
- carnivores eat herbivores and omnivores (cats, tigers, lions, sharks) (meat eaters)
- decomposers break down dead decaying matter into wastes (worms, bacteria, fungi)
- they return substances to the ecosystem as nutrients
- they are called "recyclers"
- energy in an ecosystem comes from the sun
- food chain-energy passes from on organism to another (one animal eats another for food)
- energy in a good chain moves from producers to consumers to decomposers
- food web- shows how all food chains in an ecosystem are connected
- predator-carnivore that hunts for food (eats other animals)
- prey-animal that is hunted for food (gets eaten)
- competition-struggle between organisms for food, water
- small plants and flowers compete with larger trees for sunlight, water, and nutrients
- earth is one giant food web
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