Communities & Ecosystems Food Web Poster Assignment

Communities & Ecosystems Food Web Poster - Assignment Example While saprotrophs helps in speeding up decomposition of matter, they act like detritivores but decomposition of matter by saprotrophs happens externally as opposed to detritivores that consume dead organism (Begon et al 326). Food web describes a collection of food chains. Food web shows different organism depending on more than one organism. This because some organisms such as owl as shown above on food web do not rely on one source of food like grasshoppers that only eats grass. Tropical levels are different levels in the food chain where organisms are categorized into either producers or consumers. This level depicts the transfer of energy from one level to another level. There are different levels in a food chain. For example, in a food chain above, first level comprises of producers, second level are herbivorous that feeds on plants. The next level is carnivorous which depends on herbivorous. Highest level is carnivorous that eats other small carnivorous owl is an example (Rastogi and Kishore 72). The first energy comes from the sun where it is used by plants to make food hence generating energy. The nutrient made from a plant through photosynthesis keeps plants alive. Energy is transferred to herbivorous as the first consumers of plants. The transfer of energy goes on up to the last of tertiary consumers. All energy from the sun is not used by the plant. When herbivorous consume plant to gain energy not all the plant nutrients are used to create energy, some are lost through passing out of feces. Herbivorous uses the energy gained from food consumption, but some energy is lost through respiration and heat loss (Rastogi and Kishore 75). The shape of pyramid varies as it rises to the top based on the fact that energy is lost from one level to another as stated above. From the food web above, not all grass is eaten by grasshopper to gain all energy transferred from the sun through photosynthesis. Energy