1. Producers, Consumers, and Decomposers
Trophic Levels
Producers, Consumers, and Decomposers

2. Food Web Components Producer (ex. plankton) Consumer (ex. fish)
Decomposer
(ex. bacteria)

3. Food Chain vs. Food Web
Food Chain: path of energy from one organism to the next
Food Web: interconnected food chains

4. Producers
A photosynthetic plant (use sun) or chemo-synthetic bacterium (use chemical reactions)
Constituting the first trophic level in a food chain
An autotrophic organism (can produce its own food)

5. Producers
Most producers use water, carbon dioxide, and sunlight to produce food for themselves and oxygen for other marine life.

6. Ocean Plants: Producers
Producers make up the largest biomass of the ocean
Producers help sustain marine ecosystems by providing oxygen and food for marine life
Includes: phytoplankton, diatoms, and dinoflagellates, algal films, and seaweed

7. What is a Consumer?
A heterotrophic organism that ingests other organisms or organic matter in a food chain.
Herbivore
Carnivore
Omnivore
Detritivore

8. Consumers - Herbivores
Animals that feeds mainly on plants/plankton

9. Consumers - Carnivores
Flesh eating animals.

10. Consumers - Omnivores
Organisms that eats both plants and animals

11. Consumers - Detritovores
Organisms that feeds on dead plant or animal matter

12. Consumer Levels

13. Marine Primary Consumers
Filter Feeders
Grazers
Browsers

14. Filter Feeders Eat diatoms Convert plant material into animal tissue
Ex. Barnacles- extend feathers into water

15. Grazers Eat algal films on rocks and surfaces
Most grazers are classified as Molluscs
Ex. Sea Slugs, Snails, Limpids

16. Browsers
Eat algae
Browsers are an important element of coral reef ecology

17. Marine Secondary Consumers
Cnidarians
Comb Jellyfish
Echinoderms
Arthropods
Molluscs
Vertebrates

18. Cnidarians Great abundance in the ocean Corals, Sea Jellies, Anemones
Have stinging tentacles that stun prey and move them into the gut of the cnidarian
Feed by predation

19. Comb Sea Jellies Classified as Ctenophora
Hydroid in early stages of life then grow to become a free floater
Use cilia for movement
Tentacles are used for capturing food
Transparency helps with protection - makes them nearly invisible

20. Echinoderm Organisms with bilateral symmetry
Spiny skinned and have tube feet
Water Vascular System
Ex. Sea Stars, Sea Cucumbers, Sea Urchin

21. Arthropod Jointed legged invertebrate
Segmented body with hard exoskeleton
Eat by predation, browsing seaweed, scavengers
Ex. crabs, shrimps, sea spiders

22. Molluscs Body without cavity, bilateral symmetry
Wide range of feeding (primary grazers)
Ex. Snails, Slugs, Squid, Bivalves
Largest Mollusc: Octopus

23. Vertebrates Internal skeleton, nerve chord, and backbone
Mostly predators
Largest predatory vertebrate: whale
Ex. dolphins, seals, sea turtles

24. Decomposers
An organism, often a bacterium, that feeds on and breaks down dead plant or animal matter, thus making organic nutrients available to the ecosystem
Puts nutrients back into the water in their elemental form to be used by producers as fertilizer

25. Review Producers (algae, sea weed, phytoplankton)
Primary Consumers (grazers, browsers, filter feeders) eat producers
Secondary consumers eat primary consumers
Scavengers (ex. crabs) eat dead plants and animals
Decomposers (ex. bacteria and fungi) eat the last bit of usable energy for organic matter