EVERYDAY SCIENCE

Detailed explanation-1: -Consumers constitute the upper trophic levels. Unlike producers, they cannot make their own food. To get energy, they eat plants or other animals, while some eat both.

Detailed explanation-2: -Heterotrophs are known as consumers because they consume producers or other consumers. Dogs, birds, fish, and humans are all examples of heterotrophs. Heterotrophs occupy the second and third levels in a food chain, a sequence of organisms that provide energy and nutrients for other organisms.

Detailed explanation-3: -Energy is transferred between organisms in food webs from producers to consumers. The energy is used by organisms to carry out complex tasks. The vast majority of energy that exists in food webs originates from the sun and is converted (transformed) into chemical energy by the process of photosynthesis in plants.

Detailed explanation-4: -The primary consumers are herbivores (vegetarians). The organisms that eat the primary consumers are meat eaters (carnivores) and are called the secondary consumers.

Detailed explanation-5: -Consumers (e.g. animals) get their energy by eating the producers and/or other consumers. Scavengers and decomposers get their energy by eating dead plants or animals. Rotting food (or food that’s gone ‘bad’) doesn’t look or smell great but it contains a wealth of nutrients, including carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorous.