Only the green plants in the ecosystem that is able to produce its own food through photosynthesis with the help of water, carbon dioxide, chlorophyll and sunlight. What about other living things? Other living things obtain food through the process of interaction with other living beings through specific interaction patterns as described in the previous material. To recall the pattern of interactions in the ecosystem can be seen here. This is because living beings as social beings can not live without the role of other living beings. One form of interaction between living things is the process by eating and being eaten when arranged in a sequence that will form a food chain. Well, this time we will learn about the food chain, food web.
a. Food Chain
The food chain is the event of eating and being eaten between living things in a certain order. In the food chain there are living beings who act as producers, consumers, and decomposers. Here is an example of a food chain.
In the food chain is the process of eating and being eaten in a certain order that is grass eaten by locusts, grasshoppers eat frogs, snakes eat frogs and if a snake is described by a fungus that act as decomposers into nutrients to be utilized by plants to grow and thrive.
Each level of the food chain in an ecosystem are called trophic levels. At first trophic level organisms that are capable of producing their own food substances which green plants or organisms autotrophs in other words is often called the manufacturer. Organisms that occupy the second trophic level called primary consumers (consumer I). Consumers I normally occupied by herbivores. Organisms that occupy the third trophic level are called secondary consumers (Consumer II), occupied by carnivores (Carnivora) and so on. Organisms that occupy the highest trophic level of the consumer called the peak.
Thus, the food chain can be explained that:
Grass acts as a producer.
Grasshopper as a consumer I (Herbivores)
Frogs as consumers II (Carnivora)
Snakes as consumers III / consumer peak (Carnivora)
Fungi as decomposers.
b. Food Webs
The food chain is a picture of events and eaten a simple meal. In fact in an ecosystem is not only there is a food chain, because the manufacturer is not always a source of food for one type of herbivore, instead of the kind of herbivores do not always eat one type of producer. Thus, in the ecosystem are interconnected food chains form a food web.
So whether it's food web? Food web is a set of interconnected food chains. Consider the example of food web below!
Can you determine how many of the food chain making up the food web? Absolutely, there are 18 food chain. To be able to determine how many of the food chain food web compiler, you have to write down the sequence one by one carefully.
c. Food Pyramid
Is like the frog in the example above the food chain is removed, what will happen? In all likelihood is the number of locusts will increase because there are no predators. In contrast the number of snakes is reduced because there is no food. What happens next is a lot of grasshoppers will die because of the amount of grass that can not meet the needs of eating locusts whose numbers increase.
From the illustration above, an ecosystem will be balanced and maintained continuity as the number of producers more than the number of customers I, the number of customers I have more than consumer II, and so on. If the condition is described it will form a food pyramid. Here is a sample of the food pyramid web of life above.
