Food Webs and Food Chains

Question 1

what is a food web?

Answer 1

a system of interlocking and interdependent food chains.

Question 2

what is a food chain?

Answer 2

a series of organisms dependant on the next as a source of food, always beginning with a producer and typically ending with an apex predator or decomposer.

Question 3

what is a trophic level?

Answer 3

any of the sequential stages in a food chain occupied by producers at the bottom and primary, secondary, and tertiary consumers consecutively.

Question 4

what is a producer?

Answer 4

producers are organisms that make energy through their own biochemical processes.

Question 5

what is a consumer?

Answer 5

consumers are organisms that need to eat food to obtain energy.

Question 6

what is a decomposer?

Answer 6

decomposers are organisms that break down dead or decaying waste.

Question 7

what is the purpose of an energy pyramid?

Answer 7

an energy pyramid is a model that shows the flow of energy from one trophic, as each level progresses it loses 90% of the level below it.