Food chains

When you investigate the feeding relationships of living things in an environment, you need to be able to write it down clearly. This way, everyone can easily understand what each living thing in that environment eats.

A study of feeding relationships, or food chains, helps us to better understand our environment. And if you study the feeding relationships in an environment, you are better able to predict what will happen if the plants and animals are threatened in any way. For example, you can predict that removing gum trees could endanger the lives of koalas if you know that koalas only eat certain gum leaves.

You can see that a study of the environment and the living things in it is very important. This part of biology is called ecology.

teacher talking

Danger lurks

The natural environment is not a place for the faint-hearted. Lurking around every corner is a creature looking for something to eat.

Imagine you are in the jungle. It's hot, humid and getting dark. You are lost! A distant growl sends shivers up your spine. You stumble on, hoping to get out of this one alive.

Suddenly, without warning, a black and gold beast flashes by! A tiger. You can hear crashing and thrashing not far away. Then, you catch a glimpse and a scene unfolds. A hungry tiger, on the lookout for a meal, has caught a pig that has wandered away from the local village. Poor pig. It was caught unawares, feeding on new grass and roots in the forest. As the tiger is busy dismembering and devouring the pig, you take the chance to escape.

You run blindly through the forest and eventually find your way back to the village you left hours ago. A casual stroll turned into a real adventure.

Now answer the following questions.