We're all in it Together

Background Information:

All life in and around a wetland is interconnected in intricate and complex ways we call an ecosystem. Members of an ecosystem perform different roles that include producers, consumers or decomposers.

Producers are green plants that use the sun`s energy, soil and water in a process called photosynthesis to make their own food. The food and oxygen that they produce is used by other living things in the ecosystem.

Consumers are animals that get their energy by eating plants or other animals. There are four general categories of consumers; herbivores (plant eaters), carnivores (eat other animals), omnivores (eat both plant and animals). Decomposers are the ``recyclers`` of an ecosystem (e.g. moulds, fungi, worms, some insects); they break down dead plant and animals and in the process make nutrients available to be used again.

Food chains consist of a sequence of living things; beginning with green plants, progressing to animals that eat plants and animals that eat other animals. An example of a wetland food chain would be: a butterfly feeds on a flower`s nectar and is eaten by a frog, which is eaten by a snake, which in turn is eaten by a hawk. Luckily, most animals feed on more than one other type of plant or animal, so food chains aren`t just one straight line, but more like a complex web.

Food webs are complex relationships which may include many organisms at each level of the food chain.

Follow-up Activity: Have students research a Carolinian Species. Have them find out what it eats and what eats it. Have students come to school with that information as well as (if possible) a piece of sidewalk chalk (provide chalk to those without). In large letters have students print their species name on the tarmac. Work together to draw arrows tracing the path of energy from one species to another. Some extra animals or plants may need to be added by the group. If possible get a custodian to take a picture of your food web from the roof of the school!