Movin' Up The Food Chain

This week's assignment was to photograph and blog about a food chain.  Being in town, I don't see a lot of larger predators, so I focused my food chain on what I see in my backyard.





 

Producer



Primary Consumer

Secondary Consumer

A food chain shows the energy flow from one organism to another. It starts with a producer - a green plant of some kind that gets its energy from the sun through photosynthesis. Therefore, my first picture starts with my garden, which is contains onions and potatoes right now. We've just started planting and tilling up the dirt for the other beds.

 

The second level of the food chain is a primary consumer - an organism that eats a producer.  Looking in the freshly tilled dirt, I was able to find earthworms.  The earthworms in my raised garden beds are compliments of my children.  Whenever they are helping with yardwork and find earthworms, they take them to one of the raised beds.  They are great for the garden.  :)  They eat decaying plant matter and help to add nutrients to the soil for the plants.  Because they eat dead and decaying materials, they are called decomposers.



The third level of the food chain is a secondary consumer - an organism that eats a primary consumer.  In the center of the picture, you will see a soil centipede.  Soil centipedes are carnivorous and will eat earthworms.  (A little picture bonus:  Also making an appearance are a couple of pill bugs.  These are primary consumers.  They, like the earthworms, eat decaying plant matter, but are also known to eat vegetation at ground level and small roots.

I really liked this assignment.  Many times when we think of a food chain, it involves much larger predators.  It was a great way to show that energy flow happens even in very small areas and with very small organisms.

Until next time,

Clara