Year 11 Pre-Diploma Biology

ECOLOGY FOOD WEBS AND CHAINS

FOOD WEBS & FOOD CHAINS should by now be a well understood concept so, try this difficult
problem. Convert the following written information into a diagrammatic form a food web. You
may have to research a little to find out what some of the organisms are, although their actual
names are not so important.

The following relationships may be observed on many rocky sea shores, some when the tide is
in (high tide) and some when the tide is out (low tide):

(i) Limpets (molluscs) grazing on diatoms (small algae), which are attached to rocks
(ii) dog-whelks (snails) eating barnacles (crustaceans) and mussels (molluscs)
(iii) crabs consuming dead mussels in cracks in the rocks
(iv) Barnacles feeding on zooplankton (animal plankton, often one celled organisms or
tiny larvae of crustaceans, etc.)
(v) Mussels feeding on phytoplankton (plant plankton single celled algae, etc.)
(vi) periwinkles (snails) feeding on diatoms attached to seaweeds
(vii) sea-gulls (scavenging sea birds) feeding on dead crabs
(viii) Turnstones (a wading bird) feeding on dog-whelks, limpets and periwinkles, which
they kill.

A) (i) Which of the organisms above are herbivores
Limpets, Mussels, Periwinkles
(ii) Which are primary consumers
Zooplankton, Mussels, Barnacles, Limpets, Periwinkles
(iii) which are autotrophs
Diatoms, Phytoplankton
(iv) which are secondary consumers
Dog whelks, Crabs, Turnstones
(v) which are tertiary consumers
Seagulls

(vi) which are detritivores
Barnacles, Crabs, Zooplankton
(vii) Which are heterotrophs?
Limpets, Dog whelks, Mussels, Periwinkles, Turnstones


B) Construct two complete food chains from the descriptions given above. Of course, each
food chain does not need to include all the organisms listed in (i) to (viii) above.











C) Construct a whole food web for this rocky shore community.




Diatoms
Mussels
Crabs Dog whelks
Seagulls
Diatoms Phytoplankton
Limpets
Periwinkles
Turnstones
Mussels
Crabs
Seagulls
Dog whelks
Zooplankton