The Hot Desert Ecosystem
Learning Objective: To explain food
webs and food chains of a hot desert.
Learning Outcomes:
• All students will know the difference between
a food chain and food web.
• Most pupils will be able to explain a typical
desert food web and food chain.
• Some pupils will be able to explain what
would happen to the desert ecosystem if the
food web changes.
Key word match up
1. Foodweb = a large food chain made up of several consumers
2. Foodchain = a diagram to show what eats what in an ecosystem
3. Producer = Plants are producers. Using sunlight, Co2, water,
nutrients from soil, they can produce everything it needs to stay
alive.
4. Consumer = something that eats other living things.
5. Predator = an animal that naturally preys on others.
6. Carnivore =a animal that eats meat
7. Herbivore = a animal that eats plants
8. Decomposer = fungi and bacteria are these. They break things
down.
9. Ecosystem: a unit made up of living things and their non living
environment.
The Desert Ecosystem
• There is a relationship between the plants and
animals in the desert which enables all of them to
survive.
• Plants make their own food
• The animals feed on the plants or each other
• Decomposers feed on dead and waste material and
recycle nutrients that the plants can use again.
• Without the plants, all other living things would die.
• What do you think the plants rely on to live?
Food chains
• A food chain shows what eats what. They
always start with plants. The arrow means
eaten by:
Cacti
Rat
Snake
Hawk
Food Webs
• This is a bigger version of a food chain as often
several consumers eat the same food.
Consumers can be both small and large
predators. The larger the predator the higher
up the food web it will be.
• The following is an example of a food web for
a oak woodland. Can you pick out two
consumers that are eating the same food?
One possible answer...
A desert
food web
1. What would happen to the web if the fox or
hawk could no longer exist in a desert?
2. What would happen if the desert became too
dry for any producers to live?
3. What would happen if the snake could no
longer exist in desert?
“The desert ecosystem depends of the sun”
Do you agree with this statement?
Can you draw a diagram to support your
answer?