In the savannah, the lion sits atop the terrestrial food chain as it has no natural predators that will threaten the lion. But it cycles back to the bottom of the African food chain with the worms and maggots as it will help decay the body of a dead lion, returning the energy to the soil. This in turn will nourish and provide the plant life with nutrients ensuring that the cycle continues.
The food chain is an overview of the organisms in a specific ecosystem and the predator and prey relationships between those organisms are all arranged in a hierarchical order. Scientists have divided the food chain into multiple levels called trophic levels, which range from 1 to 5 different trophic levels. The higher the organism is on the trophic level the fewer predators it has in the food chain.
A good food chain will empirically feature the organisms based on its trophic level, beginning the list at trophic level 1, which is dubbed the producers. Anything above trophic level 1 in the food chain is named consumers. If you are still unsure or confused about the concept of a food chain you may view any of the food chain examples, samples, and PDFs on the list above.
Begin by researching the specifics and details of the biome or ecosystem you are making a food chain on. The details should include the following the scavengers in the biome, the specific plants of the biome, the animals living in the biome, and the insects in the biome.
After researching the different details of the biome, you will now need to list down and categorize the organisms in the biome. This will include plants, insects, and animals inside the biome or ecosystem.
You will now use the listed down organisms and begin separating them by trophic level. Start by organizing all the producers like plants and worms on trophic level 1, and work your way up until you have completed the food chain.
When you have finished separating the organisms you must now draw lines and arrows representing the relationship these organisms have in relation to the food chain. The arrows can be used to indicate which organism consumes the other organism.
Food chains and food webs are related to one another. The food chain is an outline that details what living organism consumes the other as its food in a given setting or biome. This outline will be arranged hierarchically as the animal seated at the top of the food chain will have no predators. A food web is the collection of food chains in a specific setting, ecosystem, biome, or environment. An example of a food web would be a collection of all the food chains in the Pacific Ocean.
The food chain will illustrate how each living organism obtains its energy via its natural food source. The reason we need to be knowledgeable about the food chain is so that we can understand how energy is being transmitted and transferred from one organism to another and also how each of these organisms balances out the ecology.
Biomagnification, also known as food web amplification or food web magnification, is the concept that there will be an amplification or buildup of the contaminants inside an organism as it goes higher on the food chain. Biomagnification implies that organisms on the higher trophic level will have more contaminants in their system.
The food chain is a delicate system that allows us to understand how organisms affect one another. Not only does the food chain do that, but it also illustrates how one organism can affect the other, and the implications it might have should something remove the organism from the food chain.
