The Great Escape!

Animals are interdependent on each other. They form a chain of eating and being eaten. This chain formed by the connecting of food, is called the food chain.

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Food Chain

Plants and animals are dependent on each other for survival.

When a chain of organisms are linked together by the process of eating and being eaten for food, it is called the food chain.

From the producers, the energy gets passed on to the consumers at different level. Thus, producers are always at the beginning of the food chain.

Autotrophs

Plants are called producers or autotrophs as they are able to use light energy from the Sun to produce food from carbon dioxide and water.

Green plants use the energy from the Sun to prepare food. In a food chain, energy from plants (producers) is passed on from one organism to another.

Heterotrophs

Animals cannot make their own food so they must eat plants and for other animals and hence they are called consumers or heterotrophs.

Scavengers

Animals such as vultures, hyenas and jackals that feed on dead animal matter present in its habitat are called scavengers.

Decomposers

These organisms that feed on dead remains of plants and animals and convert them into humus are called decomposers.

The nutrients that producers (plants) absorb from the soil are passed onto all the consumers. When a producer or a consumer dies, bacteria or fungi act to break down or decompose the material into the nutrient substances it was made up of.

Food Web

Unlike food chains that follow a single path of flow of energy as animals find food, food webs show how plants and animals are connected in many ways to help them all survive.

There are animals other than the grasshopper that eat plants. There are also animals other than the snake that eat frogs. Similarly, peacocks eat snakes as well.