Food Chains,

Food Webs, and

Ecological Pyramids
A food chain is the simplest path that energy
takes through an ecosystem.
Energy enters from the sun.
Each level in the transfer of energy is a trophic
level.
Organisms at each level use energy in cellular
respiration and heat loss and store the rest.
 The 1 Trophic Level
st

Consists of primary producers

(autotrophs).
Primary producers include land
plants and phytoplankton in aquatic
environments.
 2nd Trophic Level
Consists of primary consumers
(heterotrophs)
Primary consumers that eat green
plants are herbivores.
Examples: grasshoppers, rabbits,
zooplankton
The 3rd and Any Higher Trophic Level

Consistsof consumers.
Carnivores and omnivores
Examples: Humans, wolves, frogs,
and minnows
Arrows
represent the
flow of energy
…Not Who
Eats Who.
 A food web represents
may interconnected
food chains describing
various paths that
energy takes through
an ecosystem.
Ecological Pyramids
Models that show how energy flows through
ecosystems.
Pyramids can show the relative amounts of
energy, biomass, or numbers of organisms at
each trophic level in an ecosystem.
The base of the pyramid represents producers.
Each step up represents a different level of
consumer.
The number of trophic levels in the pyramid is
determined by the number of organisms in the
chain or web.
Energy pyramids compare energy used by producers and
other organisms on trophic levels.

• Between each tier of an

energy pyramid, up to 90
percent of the energy is
lost into the atmosphere
as heat.
• Only 10 percent of the
energy at each tier is
transferred from one energy
energy transferred
lost
trophic level to the next.
Other pyramid models illustrate an ecosystem’s biomass and
distribution of organisms.

 Biomass is a measure of the total dry mass of organisms in

a given area.

Biomass tertiary 75 g/m2

consumers
pyramid

150g/m2
secondary
consumers

primary
consumers 675g/m2

producers 2000g/m2
producers
Even though a biomass pyramid shows the
total mass of organisms at each level, it
doesn’t necessarily represent the amount of
energy available at each level.
For example, the skeleton and beak of a bird
will contribute to the biomass but aren’t
available for energy.
 A pyramid of numbers shows the numbers of individual organisms at each
trophic level in an ecosystem.

5
tertiary
consumers

secondary 5000
consumers

primary
500,000
consumers

producers
producers 5,000,000

• A vast number of producers are required to support even a

few top level consumers.
        
Thank you