The Hot Desert Ecosystem

Learning Objective: To explain food webs and food chains of a hot desert.

Learning Outcomes:

• All students will know the difference between a food chain and food web.

• Most pupils will be able to explain a typical desert food web and food chain.

• Some pupils will be able to explain what would happen to the desert ecosystem if the food web changes.

Key word match up1. Foodweb = a large food chain made up of several consumers2. Foodchain = a diagram to show what eats what in an ecosystem3. Producer = Plants are producers. Using sunlight, Co2, water,

nutrients from soil, they can produce everything it needs to stay alive.

4. Consumer = something that eats other living things.5. Predator = an animal that naturally preys on others.6. Carnivore =a animal that eats meat7. Herbivore = a animal that eats plants8. Decomposer = fungi and bacteria are these. They break things

down.9. Ecosystem: a unit made up of living things and their non living

environment.

The Desert Ecosystem

• There is a relationship between the plants and animals in the desert which enables all of them to survive.

• Plants make their own food• The animals feed on the plants or each other• Decomposers feed on dead and waste material and

recycle nutrients that the plants can use again.• Without the plants, all other living things would die.• What do you think the plants rely on to live?

Food chains

• A food chain shows what eats what. They always start with plants. The arrow means eaten by:

Cacti Rat Snake Hawk

Food Webs

• This is a bigger version of a food chain as often several consumers eat the same food. Consumers can be both small and large predators. The larger the predator the higher up the food web it will be.

• The following is an example of a food web for a oak woodland. Can you pick out two consumers that are eating the same food?

One possible answer...

A desert food web

1. What would happen to the web if the fox or hawk could no longer exist in a desert?

2. What would happen if the desert became too dry for any producers to live?

3. What would happen if the snake could no longer exist in desert?

“The desert ecosystem depends of the sun”

Do you agree with this statement?

Can you draw a diagram to support your answer?