Introduction
All living things be it plants or animals, need energy to live. From where do they get energy?
Plants depend on the sunlight, water and minerals from the soil to make their food and get energy. Plants are the producers of food. They use the sun's energy through the process of photosynthesis to make their food.
Humans and animals get energy when they consume the food made by plants or other animals.
What is Food Chain ?
The food chain starts with green plants making food using the energy from the sun. Animals get this energy when they eat the plants.
Look at the food chain given above. The arrow in the chain means "is eaten by" It starts with plants, which produce food. The worm eats the plant. The sparrow eats the worm. And the sparrow is eaten by the cat. So, the food chain shows who eats who. Food chain also shows how the energy was transferred from plants to the cat, which does not eat plants.
Prey is the animals that are eaten, and a predator is the animal that eats the prey. For example, when the sparrow eats the worm, the worm is the prey, and the sparrow is the predator. When the cat eats the sparrow, the sparrow becomes the prey of the cat, and the cat is the predator.
An apex predator is a top predator at the top of the food chain of an ecosystem. This animal eats other animal and does not get eaten by any other animals. For example, the apex predator of India is the tiger and Africa's apex predator is the lion.
