Food Chains

• A food chain shows the transfer of biomass from one trophic level to another. The arrows represent the flow of energy through the food chain.
• at the start of all food chains is the producer. this is almost always a plant or algae which can photosynthesis to convert carbon dioxide and water into glucose. This provides all the biomass for the food chain. Each stage in the food chain is called a trophic level
• All following trophic levels after the producer, relates to the consumers, which cannot make their own food.
• Herbivores eat plants, carnivores eat animals and omnivores eat both plants and animals.
• The second trophic level in all food chains is a herbivore called a primary consumer.
• The third stage is a carnivore or omnivore which eats the primary consumer. This is called the secondary consumer.
• There may be additional carnivorous consumers which would be called tertiary and quaternary. The final level is a carnivore often called the top or apex predator - organisms at the top of the food chain have no predators.
• Biomass is the dry mass of living organisms
• Trophic levels describe the position of an organism in a food chain, web or pyramid.