WHAT'S EATING YOU?

• Within any ecosystem, all the living organisms have a role to play. Plants are producers. Within their green leaves, they have round discs called chloroplasts that form stacks called grana. A distinctively green substance called chlorophyll fills the chloroplasts, giving the plant its green color. The chloroplasts allow the plant to use water, sunlight, and carbon dioxide (the gas we breathe out) to make, or produce, their own food. That is why they are called producers.

• When an animal eats a plant, energy that the plant got from the sun is transferred to the animal. An animal that eats plants is called an herbivore.  Since it is the first animal in the food chain, it is also the primary consumer.  A consumer is an animal that eats plants, or other animals. Consumers that eat only other animals are called carnivores. Consumers that eat both plants and animals are called omnivores.

• Producers are critical to the survival of all living organisms in an ecosystem.  Consumers depend on producers for the food, which gives them energy. Without producers, none of the other living things in the ecosystem would survive for long. It makes sense, then, that animals sometimes help plants to reproduce, or make more plants.

• Many plants make seeds by combining pollen from their flowers with pollen from other flowers. Water or wind occasionally helps pollen get where it needs to go, but sometimes it is carried by animals, especially birds and insects.

• Animals that help plants reproduce by carrying pollen from one plant to another are called pollinators.

• Larger animals often help plants reproduce without even realizing it. They carry seeds from one place to another so plants can spread to new places.  Carrying and scattering plant seeds so they will have the opportunity to expand to new areas is called seed dispersal. Some seeds are blown by the wind or carried by water, but many are caught in the fur of animals or eaten with fruit from the plant. Carried either inside or outside of an animal, the seeds are deposited and grow in their new locations.

Name:__________________________________

Answer the following questions based on the reading passage. Don’t forget to go back to the passage whenever necessary to find or confirm   your answers.

1) What is the relationship between producers and consumers?

2) What is the ultimate source of energy for all living things?

3)  How do animals help ensure that plants reproduce?

  

4)  Give an example of a pollinator.

5)  Describe a food chain with at least three links. What is the producer? What is the primary consumer? What is the secondary consumer?