Ocean Food Chains
How does energy pass from tiny plankton up to the biggest ocean animals?
An exploration of how energy moves from sunlight and microscopic plankton to the ocean's largest predators, explaining the 10% rule and the importance of the food web.
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Ocean Food Chain Basics
1. What is the original source of energy for almost all ocean food chains?
- A. The Moon
- B. The Sun
- C. Ocean salt
- D. Deep sea vents
2. Which organism is known as the foundation or base of most ocean food chains?
- A. Blue whales
- B. Sharks
- C. Phytoplankton
- D. Large tuna
3. What do we call tiny animals that eat phytoplankton?
- A. Zooplankton
- B. Sunlight
- C. Decomposers
- D. Predators
4. What happens when many food chains are connected together?
- A. A food circle
- B. A food web
- C. A energy loss
- D. A predator group
Energy Transfer and Ecosystems
1. According to the 10% rule, what happens to most of the energy when one animal eats another?
- A. It is stored in the animal's teeth
- B. It is lost as heat or used by the animal to move and grow
- C. It is sent back to the Sun
- D. It is converted into salt
2. Why are there usually many more tiny plankton than top predators like sharks?
- A. Because sharks like to eat other sharks
- B. Because energy is lost at each step, so you need more base energy to support top predators
- C. Because plankton are much faster swimmers than sharks
- D. Because sharks are too big to eat plankton
3. Why is it a misconception that ocean plants get their food from the soil?
- A. Ocean plants do not have roots and absorb nutrients directly from the water
- B. Ocean plants eat small fish for energy
- C. Ocean plants get all their nutrients from the sand
- D. Ocean plants do not need nutrients at all
4. What is the role of decomposers in an ocean food web?
- A. They eat all the live fish
- B. They turn sunlight into energy
- C. They break down dead animals and recycle nutrients back into the water
- D. They make the water colder for the fish
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