Food Chains, Sampling & Predator–Prey Cycles

Food chains

• Photosynthetic organisms are the producers of biomass for life on Earth
• Every food chain begins with a producer, usually a green plant or alga that makes glucose by photosynthesis
• Producers are eaten by primary consumers, which may be eaten by secondary consumers, then tertiary consumers
• Consumers that kill and eat other animals are predators; those eaten are prey. The arrows in a food chain show the direction of energy (biomass) transfer