Omnivore - an animal that eats both plants and animals eg bears and humans. Producer - usually a green plant that produces its own food by photosynthesis Primary Consumer - Animals that consume only plant matter.
They are herbivores - eg rabbits, caterpillars, cows, sheep, and deer. Secondary Consumer - Animals that eat primary consumers herbivores. Tertiary Consumer - Animals that eat secondary consumers ie carnivores that feed on other carnivores. Predators - kill for food. They are either secondary or tertiary consumers - eg polar bears, golden eagles Prey - are the organisms that predators feed on.
As you probably know, the organisms at the base of the food chain are photosynthetic; plants on land and phytoplankton algae in the oceans. These organisms are called the producers, and they get their energy directly from sunlight and inorganic nutrients.
The organisms that eat the producers are the primary consumers. They tend to be small in size and there are many of them. The primary consumers are herbivores vegetarians. The organisms that eat the primary consumers are meat eaters carnivores and are called the secondary consumers. The secondary consumers tend to be larger and fewer in number. This continues on, all the way up to the top of the food chain. Therefore, the energy transfer from one trophic level to the next, up the food chain, is like a pyramid; wider at the base and narrower at the top.
Because of this inefficiency, there is only enough food for a few top level consumers, but there is lots of food for herbivores lower down on the food chain. There are fewer consumers than producers.
Food Web : At each trophic level, there may be many more species than indicated in the table above. Some secondary consumers eat both plants and animals.
Ecosystems can also have tertiary consumers, carnivores that eat other carnivores. A bald eagle is an example of a tertiary consumer you might see near the coastal mangrove islands of the Everglades.
Its diet includes predatory fish that eat algae-eating fish, as well as snakes that feed on grass-eating marsh rabbits. When a top predator dies, it is consumed by scavengers or decomposers. In addition to consumers and the producers that support them, ecosystems have decomposers. These organisms get their nourishment from dead organic material, such as decaying plant leaves or dead fish that sink to the bottom of a pond.
Also called an autotroph. The audio, illustrations, photos, and videos are credited beneath the media asset, except for promotional images, which generally link to another page that contains the media credit. The Rights Holder for media is the person or group credited. Tyson Brown, National Geographic Society.
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Other herbivores include small fish, squid, sea urchins, and krill. The shrimplike krill are found in the cold oceans. And sea urchins, as you know, feed on coral reefs and kelp. Other animals eat seeds and fruit. Among these are squirrels, bats, sparrows, finches, and parrots. Hummingbirds, butterflies, and bees eat the nectar from flowers.
Soil animals, such as grubs and worms eat plant roots. All these animals are primary consumers. Next come the secondary consumers. These animals eat primary consumers. Some of these are large predators such as lions, wolves, crocodiles, and eagles.
They may eat animals bigger than they are. Some lions, for example, kill and eat water buffalo. The buffalo weigh twice as much as the lions do. Weasels catch very large prey. They are deadly killers. A single bite to the back of a rabbit's neck kills it at once. Which animal is the fiercest predator?
You could measure the fierceness of a predator by the size of its prey. Then weasels would top the list.
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