Transcription of Producers, Consumers & Decomposers
1 SOL PART 3 Life Processes & living Systems NOTEPAGE FOR STUDENT Producers, Consumers & Decomposers Within a community, organisms are dependent on the survival of other organisms . A food chain shows how energy passes from one living thing to another living thing. It follows a single path as different creatures eat each other for energy. All food chains begin with energy. This energy comes from the sun. The greatest amount of energy in an ecosystem is found in its producers. Producers Producers use water, air, and sunlight to make their own food and food energy.
2 Green plants are producers. They are the only living things that can make their own food. They use the sun s energy to produce food energy, which they store in their cells (photosynthesis). Some producers include trees and bushes (leaves, fruits, berries, and flowers), grasses, ferns, and vegetables. Consumers A consumer is a living thing that eats, or consumes other living things to get food energy. Consumers cannot make their own food. When an animal eats or consumes a plant, some of the food energy inside the plant is passed on to the animal.
3 Animals need this energy to live. Some animals that eat plants include deer, moose, whales, elephants, cows, horses, pigs, rabbits, and squirrels. As you know, not all Consumers eat plants. Animals like lions, tigers, cats, wolves, sharks, walruses, polar bears, seals, vultures, anteaters, and owls eat other animals to get energy. Decomposers Another kind of consumer eats only dead plants and animals. These Consumers are called Decomposers . Decomposers break down the bodies of dead plants and animals and help the food energy inside the dead bodies get back into the soil, the water, and the air.
4 Some Decomposers include worms and mushrooms. Green plants use this energy that has been put back into the soil, the water, and the air to make more food energy with the help of the sun. And so, as the sun s energy cycles through ecosystems from producers through Consumers and then Decomposers , the food chain begins again. 2011
