How Do You Learn About Biodiversity And Food Webs?
• Understand what a food chain is. A food chain is a sequence of who eats whom. The usual order of a food chain is: • sunlight • plants • herbivore • omnivore; and/or • carnivore. • Use a real life example demonstrating a food chain to help you understand it better. Millions of food chains exist around the world. The following farming food chain example is one example of a simple food chain based only on green plants, goats, microorganisms and humans. • Green grass and wildflowers use sunlight to grow in a field maintained by a farmer. This field is called a pasture. • A goat (herbivore) grazes on these delicious plants in the pasture. • In turn, the goat provides milk, meat and wool for the farmer, his or her family, and others. • The goat also provides fertilizer. • Microorganisms decompose the goats’ poop or excrements, which provides fertilizers for the grass and flowers to grow. • Understand the food web. Food chains that are related in an ecosystem form a food web. In forest ecos
