What is a food chain? | Year 4 Science PDF Download

Food provides energy

• All living things require some form of consumption, like food, for energy. 
• As a result, all living things are part of a food chain.

The transfer of energy

• All living things require energy from food to grow, repair themselves, and reproduce.
• Plants obtain their energy from sunlight through photosynthesis.
• Animals must consume plants or other animals to obtain their energy.
• The arrows in a food chain illustrate the flow of energy from one living thing to another.
• In the food chain shown below, the arrows indicate the direction of energy flow.

Parts of a food chain

• Plants are at the start of most food chains and are known as producers because they create their own food.
• Any animal that eats a producer is called a primary consumer. In the food chains below, rabbits are primary consumers. All primary consumers are herbivores because they only consume plants.
• Secondary consumers eat primary consumers. All secondary consumers are predators since they kill and eat other animals. The fox is a secondary consumer and also a predator, with rabbits as their prey.
• The animal at the top of the food chain is referred to as the top predator.
• Changes in food chains impact all the organisms within them. For example, if rabbits became sick and began to die, foxes would have less food and might also die, but the grass could grow more abundantly due to fewer rabbits eating it. All living things in a food chain rely on one another.

Food Webs

• When we compare two food chains, we are essentially looking at the flow of energy and nutrients through different organisms in an ecosystem. 
• Two of these food chains share the same producer and top predator, which indicates a connection that can be visualized in a food web.