Year 5 · Science · 2 minutes
Food chains in the ngahere
Sun → producers → consumers → decomposers
Key terms
- Producer
- A plant that uses sunlight to make its own food.
- Consumer
- An animal that gets energy by eating other living things.
- Decomposer
- Living things like fungi and worms that break down dead things and return nutrients to the soil.
- Food chain
- A line of living things where arrows show energy passing from one to the next.
- Food web
- Many food chains joined together, showing that everything is connected.
- Predator Free twenty fifty
- A national goal to trap stoats, rats and possums so native animals can recover.
Transcript
Kia ora, explorers! It's night in the forest, and a ruru is out hunting. But where does its energy really come from? The Sun!
Every food chain starts with plants, like this kōwhai tree. Plants are producers. They use sunlight to make their own food.
A wētā munches on leaves. Then a ruru swoops down and gobbles up the wētā. That's a food chain! The arrows show energy passing from one living thing to the next.
Animals are consumers. The kererū is a herbivore, eating fruit and leaves. The ruru is a carnivore; it eats other animals. And the tūī is an omnivore, sipping nectar and snapping up insects.
And when things die, decomposers like fungi and worms break them down, putting nutrients back into the soil for new plants.
Now join all the chains together, and you get a food web. Everything is connected.
But people brought new predators to Aotearoa. Stoats, rats and possums eat eggs, chicks and wētā. Our native animals had never met hunters like these, so the web starts to fall apart.
That's why New Zealand has a huge goal: Predator Free twenty fifty. By trapping stoats, rats and possums, people across the country are helping the web heal.
So remember. Energy flows from the Sun, to producers, to consumers. Decomposers recycle what's left. And every link in the web matters.
Sources
Every fact in the video, and where it comes from.
- 1sciencelearn.org.nz/resources/143-food-chains-and-food-webs
- Food chains start with producers (plants) that use energy from sunlight to make their own food; energy passes along the chain to consumers.
- Decomposers such as fungi, bacteria and worms break down dead material and return nutrients to the soil.
- 2doc.govt.nz/nature/native-animals/birds/birds-a-z/morepork…
- Ruru (morepork) hunt at night for large invertebrates including beetles, wētā, moths and spiders.
- 3en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_weta
- Tree wētā feed at night on leaves, flowers, fruit and small insects (simplified to 'munches on leaves').
- 4brooksanctuary.org.nz/nature-wildlife/kereru
- Kererū eat fruit and leaves (including kōwhai leaves) and spread seeds of large native fruit.
- 5doc.govt.nz/nature/native-animals/birds/birds-a-z/tui
- Tūī feed mainly on nectar from native flowers such as kōwhai, and also eat fruit and insects.
- 6doc.govt.nz/globalassets/documents/getting-involved/studen…
- Introduced stoats, rats and possums eat native birds' eggs and chicks and invertebrates such as wētā.
- 7doc.govt.nz/nature/pests-and-threats/animal-pests
- New Zealand's native birds evolved without land mammal predators.
- 8doc.govt.nz/nature/pests-and-threats/predator-free-2050
- Predator Free 2050 aims to eradicate rats, stoats and possums from New Zealand by 2050.
Image and sound credits
- “Ninox novaeseelandiae novaeseelandiae 222420113” by Taylor Davies-Colley, CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)
- “Rattus norvegicus 74 Sunbury Street Geebung P1012741” by John Robert McPherson (CC0)
- “Hemideina ricta 171167202 Mike Bowie” by Mike Bowie, CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)
- “NZ Tui Feeding on Kōwhai Flowers (52380550252)” by Geoff McKay from Palmerston North, New Zealand, CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)
- “Kererū eating karaka berries” by Jacqui Geux, CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)
- “Mustela erminea 214323023” by Julien Renoult, CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)
- “NZ Possum” by Steve Olsen, CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)
- “Sophora microphylla.(Kowhai) (14901091036)” by Bernard Spragg. NZ from Christchurch, New Zealand (CC0)
- “Sulphur tufts (Hypholoma fasciculare) - Flickr - Bernard Spragg” by Bernard Spragg. NZ from Christchurch, New Zealand (CC0)
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