Food Chains and Ecosystems

Food Chains and Ecosystems

A food chain shows how energy passes from one living thing to another, starting with a producer (usually a plant) and moving through a series of consumers.

Producers and consumers

Producers make their own food (via photosynthesis). Primary consumers eat producers, secondary consumers eat primary consumers, and so on up the chain.

Energy loss between levels

Only about 10% of energy passes from one level of a food chain to the next — the rest is lost as heat, used for movement, or lost in waste. This is why food chains rarely have more than 4-5 levels.

Practice

In the food chain grass → rabbit → fox, which organism is the producer?