Daniela Durn

Year 12 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, periwinkles, mussels and barnacles
(ii) Which are primary consumers: barnacles, periwinkles, limpets and mussels
(iii) which are autotrophs: Diatoms, phytoplankton and zooplankton
Daniela Durn

(iv) which are secondary consumers: Turnstones, dog-whelks, crabs
(v) which are tertiary consumers: sea-gulls, turnstones
(vi) which are detritivores: Crabs and sea-gulls
(vii) which are heterotrophs: Periwinkles, barnacles, limpets, mussels, crabs, sea-gulls, dog-whelks, 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.

b) Food chains:
i) Phytoplankton Mussel Crab Sea-gull




ii) Zooplankton Barnacle Dog-whelk Turnstone







Daniela Durn

Food Web

Phytoplankton Diatom Zooplankton
Mussel
Crabs
Sea-gulls
Limpet
Periwinkle Barnacle
Dog-whelk
Turnstone