Food Chains and Food Webs Flashcards

Grade 4 · Science · Flashcards

Study key vocabulary for food chains, food webs, and energy flow.

Flashcards

Food chain: A sequence showing how energy passes from one organism to the next
Food web: A diagram showing all the overlapping food chains in an ecosystem
Producer: An organism that makes its own food — always at the start of a food chain
Primary consumer: An organism that eats producers (plants); a herbivore
Secondary consumer: An organism that eats primary consumers
Tertiary consumer: A top predator that eats secondary consumers
Predator: An animal that hunts and eats other animals
Prey: An animal that is hunted and eaten by a predator
Trophic level: Each step or feeding level in a food chain
10% rule: Only 10% of energy passes from one trophic level to the next
Energy flow: The movement of energy through an ecosystem from sun to producers to consumers
Cascade effect: When the removal of one species causes changes throughout the food web