Simple Coral Reef Food Web

Larger fish stingrays octopi and squid make up the secondary consumers while sharks are the.

Simple coral reef food web. A simple diagram of the great barrier reef s food chain. Producers make up the first trophic level. In kelp forests seaweeds known as giant kelp provide shelter and food for an entire ecosystem. During the night they stretch out their tentacles and use their stinging cells to catch tiny animals called zooplankton floating in the water.

The scavengers the fish. In the coral reefs there are many different food chains. Zooplankton microscopic organisms shrimp clams and other crustaceans are also primary consumers. Herbivores consumers eat plants only while carnivores consumers are heterotrophs because they eat other organisms to get their nutrients.

This area supports more than 7 000 species of fishes invertebrates plants sea turtles birds and marine mammals. In a desert ecosystem a mouse that eats seeds and fruits is a primary consumer. The primary consumers the coral sea turtle and fish. It starts with a nitrate a type of plant which is eaten by a phyto plankton which is eaten by a large bodied zoo plankton which can be eaten by shrimps and small fish and then come the larger.

The sea sponge is eaten by the angelfish. The general labels are producer and consumer. The northwest hawaiian island coral reefs which are part of the papahānaumokuākea national marine monument provide an example of the diversity of life associated with shallow water reef ecosystems. They eat grasses shrubs and trees.

Finally the angelfish the blue chromis and the butterfly fish are all consumed by the tertiary consumer the reef shark. The coral polyps are eaten by a tertiary consumer the sea slug. The tentacles pull the plankton into the mouth of the coral for its stomach to digest. Producers are autotrophs since they use photosynthesis to get their food.

The fan worm is eaten by the tertiary consumer the puffer fish. In an ocean ecosystem many types of fish and turtles are herbivores that eat algae and seagrass. Fishes and other organisms shelter find food reproduce and rear their young in the many nooks and crannies formed by corals. The secondary consumers the sharks anemones starfish baracuda jellyfish sea snakes and sea slugs.

Corals use their special tentacles to get food using two very different strategies. Similarly a single organism can serve more than one role in a food web. The producers the phytoplankton on the ocean s surface. For example a queen conch can be both a consumer and a detritivore or decomposer.

From the largest apex predators such as the white tipped reef shark all the way down to microscopic organisms called phytoplankton no one marine creature could exist without another and this is reflected in that if one life form becomes endangered the rest of the. In this example of a coral reef there are producers consumers and decomposers. There are two types of consumers.