4.4 Tropic levels

Key Points:
1. The word trophic means to feed. Names given to the different feeding levels.
2. The carrot plant is doing photosynthesis, the carrot fly is eating the carrot plant and it makes it a herbivore. Higher up in the chain would be the fly catcher, presumably some sort of bird, making it a carnivore. And finally, the animal that feeds upon the flycatcher would the the top food carnivore.
3. However there are other names, the carrot plant would be called the producer. Producers convert light energy into chemical energy. The carrotfly would be called the primary consumer. The primary consumer takes in the chemical energy of the plant and turns it into the chemical energy OF the fly. The flycatcher is the secondary. This is again changing the chemical energy. The next feeding level is called the teriary consumer. Taking in the molecules of the fly catcher, and the chemical energy is made into the tertiaries chemical energy instead.
4. When they die, there are a special type of organisms called decomposers which dispose of the body. There are two, fungi and bacteria.
5. They break them down into nitrates and phosphates.