Where did your dinner come from?  With a partner sitting next to you:  List the types of food you ate for dinner last night Ex. pizza, cheese, pepperoni, breadsticks, jello  Under each item, write the name of the plant, animal, or other organism that was the source for that food (Some foods have more than one source)

Energy Roles  Energy Role: determined by how an organism obtains energy and interacts with other organisms Producer, consumer, or decomposer

Producers  Producer: an organism that can make its own food Source of all the food in an ecosystem Most ecosystems obtain energy from sunlight Few ecosystems obtain energy from gas

Consumers  Consumers: an organism that obtains energy by feeding on other organisms Herbivores: consumers that eat only plants Carnivores: consumers that eat only meat Omnivores: eat both plants and animals

Decomposers  Decomposers: break down wastes and dead organisms and return the raw materials to the ecosystem Nature’s own recyclers Ex. Mushrooms and bacteria

Talk to your neighbor!!  What do herbivores and carnivores have in common?  What is the role of decomposers?  What do you know about ecosystems?

Food Chains and Food Webs  Food Chain: a series of events in which one organism eats another in order to obtain energy Producer: first organism- plant First level consumer: second organism, feeds on the producer, herbivore or omnivore Second level consumer: an organism that eats the first level consumer, carnivore or omnivore Third level consumer: eats the second level consumer, also a carnivore

Food Chains and Food Webs  A food chain only shows one possible path of energy flow through an ecosystem.  Food Web: many overlapping food chains in an ecosystem an organism can play more than one role in an ecosystem  Food chains and food webs can interconnect ex. a gull might eat a fish at the ocean and a mouse at a landfill (ocean and land food web)

Share with your neighbor!  What energy role is filled by the first organism in a food chain?  How can an organism be both a first and second level consumer?

Energy Pyramids  How do organisms obtain energy? When an organism eats, it obtains energy.  Energy Pyramid: a diagram that shows the amount of energy that moves from one feeding level to another in a food web Most energy is available at the producer level Each level has less energy available

Energy Pyramids  10% of energy at one level is transferred to the next level  Where does the other 90 percent go?  The other 90% is used for the organism’s life processes or is lost to the environment as heat  The amount of energy limits the number of consumers an ecosystem can support.

 How does the Energy Pyramid Shape demonstrate the energy available at each level of a food web?

Exit Slip 1. Why do organisms need energy? 2. Where does this energy come from? 3. What is the difference between a food web and a food chain? 4. Define: producers, consumers, decomposers, and energy pyramids.