Everyone needs food
All living things need food to live. Plants make their own food using sunlight. Animals cannot do this, so they eat plants or other animals. This links living things together in a food chain.
Key idea
A food chain shows who eats what. It usually starts with a plant, because plants make food using sunlight. The arrow points to the animal that eats.
Reading a food chain
Look at this simple food chain:
| grass | → | grasshopper | → | bird |
The arrow means "is eaten by". So grass is eaten by the grasshopper, and the grasshopper is eaten by the bird.
- Producers are plants that make their own food.
- Consumers are animals that eat other living things.
In nature, many food chains join together because one animal can eat many kinds of food. When lots of food chains link up, we call it a food web. Food chains and food webs show us that plants, animals and people all depend on each other to live and stay healthy.
Remember
- Most food chains begin with a plant.
- If one living thing disappears, others in the chain are affected.