Question

Study the food web.
figure

(a) Name the producers in this food web.
(b) Name two consumers.
(c) List any two food chains that make up this web.
(d) The bird population in this region decreases due to an epidemic. What do you think will happen?

Answer 1

(a) Grass and carrot are producers. They prepare their own food by photosynthesis.

(b) Snail and bird are two consumers. Consumers are organisms that obtain their food by eating or digesting other organisms. It includes herbivores and carnivores of the ecosystem.

(c) Grass →Rabbit → Fox

Carrot → Snail → Frog → Bird → Cat

(d) The population of bird decreases due to an epidemic. As a result, the population of frog and snail, which birds controlled, increased.
When the population of frog increases, the population of snail decreases. When the number of snail decreases, the grass and carrot on which they feed increase.
When the population of snail increases, the grass and carrot on which they feed decrease. When the grass and carrot decrease, the snail population decreases again as they do not get enough food. Hence, decrease in the population of plants would disturb the entire ecological balance.

This means, if the population of any of the members in a food chain increases or decreases, it will affect the population of other members. Their number will either increase or decrease substantially.