ShmoopTube

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[Dino and Coop singing]

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There are two words that you'll hear in your life that are more important and meaningful [Boy with his hands in the air]

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than all the other words combined.

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“Taco night.”

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Those two words truly are magical, aren't they? [Long line of tacos appear]

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Unfortunately, every night is not taco night.

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It might be “casserole night” or the dreaded “grandma's weird stew night." [Dino sat next to a bowl of stew with eyeballs in it]

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The point we're trying to make here is that your diet is probably pretty diverse.

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But, even so, if we were to put all that food into a food web…well, it wouldn't really [Different foods on a spider web]

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look all too interesting.

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It'd be you on top and all that food below. [Man meditating on a pile of food]

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Thankfully, not all food webs are super boring.

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But…wait.

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Rewind.

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What exactly is a food web?

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Well, it's simple, really.

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A food web is an image we can use to show different food chains, or in other words, [Coop pointing at a blackboard]

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who eats what.

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A typical food web might look a little something like this: [Spider crawling in its web]

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First, we see some plants.

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Plants are called “primary producers” because they make their own food using chemistry.

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And no, not the kind you learn about in high school. [Plant next to a bunsen burner in a lab]

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Unless you happen to sit next to a orchid in your chemistry class…then we stand corrected. [A flash explodes]

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And to give credit where credit is due, they don't do it all on their own; they use energy

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from the sun to help them out.

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Next up come the animals that eat the plants. [Animal on top of the plants]

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They're called “primary consumers” because they eat the “primary producers.”

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Nice and simple so far, right?

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Plants using the sun to make food for themselves, and then animals eating the plants for food. [Guinea pig in a cage]

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Unfortunately, life isn't so simple.

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Enter our secondary consumers.

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These are animals that eat, you guessed it, our primary consumers. [Secondary consumers on top of the primary consumers]

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And above them come the tertiary consumers.

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All animals that eat other organisms are often referred to as simply “consumers.” [Dino eating a marshmallow]

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Connect all those animals together based on who eats what, and we've got ourselves a food web!

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And a very scary life for whoever is near the bottom of that pyramid. [Raccoon in a wood]

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Maybe don't go outside too much, okay? [Raccoon runs away as the shadow of a bird flies overhead]

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Food webs are useful tools to see how ecosystems are connected, as well as to remind us all that

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living organisms get their energy from the food they eat or make – no matter how [Coop pointing at a blackboard]

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they go about getting it. [Spider making a web]

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Another great thing about food webs is that any time there's a human involved, we always

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get to be on the very top of it.

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For now, anyway.... [Shark jumps over the food pile and eats the guy on top]

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