Food Chain: Definition and Types
Food Chain: Definition, Types, Nets, Examples and Pictures - The food chain is the process of eating and eating - in a series of organisms - in a specific order.
Every living thing needs energy to live. living things get energy from a food they eat, and all living things get energy from food. On occasion I will review the food chain in full. Therefore, let us consider the review below.
Understanding Food Chain
The food chain is an event of eating and eating between fellow living creatures in certain sequences. In a food chain there are living things that have a role as producers, consumers, and as decomposers (decomposers). In the event of the food chain there is a process of eating and being eaten in a certain order. And each level of the food chain in an ecosystem is also called the trophic level.
At the first trophic level that is an organism that can produce or make its own food substance that is green plants can also be called a producer. Then the organism that ranks second in the tropics level is primary consumers (first-level consumers), these consumers are generally occupied by herbivorous animals (plant eaters).
Furthermore, organisms that occupy the order of the third tropical level are also called secondary consumers (Second-level Consumers), generally occupied by carnivorous animals (meat-eating animals) and so on. And organisms that occupy the highest or the last tropical level are also called peak consumers, usually occupied by omnivorous animals.
Food chain in the fields
One form of mutual relations between living things is the "Food Chain". The food chain is the process of eating and being eaten - in a series of organisms - in a specific order. Each group of organisms is involved in the process of eating or being eaten.
This process occurs in a chain. Some groups of organisms prey on other groups of organisms. And these predatory organisms also fall prey to other groups of organisms. Consider the following food chain example.
Image of food chain scheme in the rice fields
Plants as autotrophic organisms produce food in the form of flower nectar. Butterflies as plant eaters consume honey flowers. Frogs catch butterflies to eat. Snakes hunt frogs to eat and eagles eat snakes.
The food chain picture above is one example of a food chain that occurs in a rice field community. You can look for examples of food chains in other ecosystems.
The food chain becomes an entry point for the flow of energy for living things. The energy comes from the sun which is converted by autotrophic organisms (food makers) such as plants into chemical energy (in stems, fruits, leaves, etc.). Meanwhile heterotrophic organisms (unable to make their own food) obtain energy by eating autotrophic organisms.
Types of Food Chains
based on the starting organism, the food chain turns out to be divided into several types. Grass chain, detritus chain, parasitic chain, and saprofit chain. Following are the differences of each type.
a. Grazing food chain
This food chain is the most frequently encountered and recognized. This food chain starts from plants as producers at the first trophic level. An example of this one food chain cycle is: grass ==> grasshopper ==> bird ==> snake.
Grain Food Chain
Other Examples: In the picture above, it is known that grass that is autotrophic acts as a producer, then eaten by grasshoppers, then grasshoppers are eaten by lizards and finally lizards are eaten by eagles.
In figure (c), grass as producers is eaten by grasshoppers as the first consumer, grasshoppers are eaten by frogs as second consumers, frogs are eaten by snakes as third consumers, and snakes are eaten by eagles as fourth consumers. Furthermore, if the eagle dies, the carcass will be eaten by other organisms and broken down by decomposing bacteria.
b. Detritus food chain
This food chain does not start from a plant, but starts from a detritivor. Detritivor is a heterotrophic organism that gets energy by eating the remains of living things.
Examples of detritus food chain cycles are: leaf flakes (garbage) ==> earthworms ==> chicken ==> humans.
Detritus is a fragment (broken) of organisms (animals and plants) that die and the rest of the organism such as animal dung, leaves, deciduous branches which are decomposed by decomposers (decomposers). Then which includes detritus-eating organisms are called detritivors, for example worms, termites, worms and so on.