Ecosystem Energy

• Producers (autotrophs) make their own food.

• Consumers (heterotrophs) get their energy by eating other

living or once-living things.
• Consumers are not all alike.
– Herbivores eat only plants.
– Carnivores eat only animals.
– Omnivores eat both plants and animals.
– Decomposers eat dead organic matter. (fungi)
– They break down organic compounds into atoms

carnivore decomposer
A food chain shows a sequence of feeding
relationships.
If the grass (the producer) disappears, the cottontail
(prey) has no food (dies), the hawk ( a predator) will
lose its prey
GRAMA GRASS DESERT COTTONTAIL HARRIS’S HAWK
A food web shows a complex network of food chains
Trophic levels show flow of energy in a food chain
(through nourishment/food)

90% of energy
Carnivores lost as it flows
up the food
Herbivores (primary chain.
consumers which are
(anything that only eat
plants)

Producers (plants, anything

that makes its own food)