8 Micro Food Chains-High

Micro Food Chains FOCUS Question What kinds of food chains exist at a very small scale?

微观食物链焦点问题什么类型的食物链存在于非常小的规模?

Chains of Every Size Think of a typical food chain diagram. Energy comes from the Sun. Grass uses sunlight to make food. A mouse eats the grass, and a hawk eats the mouse. The plants and animals in this food chain are familiar. But in nature, most living things are not fluffy animals with legs or wings. In fact, most living things on Earth are so small that we can't see them without a microscope. They are called microorganisms. Just like mice and hawks, microorganisms are part of food chains. You might call them "micro food chains."

想象一个典型的食物链图。 能量来自太阳。 草利用阳光制造食物。 老鼠吃草，老鹰吃老鼠。 这条食物链中的植物和动物都很熟悉。 但在自然界中，大多数生物都不是有腿或翅膀的毛茸茸的动物。 事实上，地球上的大多数生物都很小，没有显微镜我们就看不到它们。 它们被称为微生物。 就像老鼠和鹰一样，微生物是食物链的一部分。 你可以称它们为“微食物链”。

Staying Small, Growing Big Micro food chains have all the same links as larger food chains. They start with producers. Single-celled algae use sunlight to make food, just as plants do. Moving up one link are consumers. They eat other living things. Bacteria, fungi, and very tiny animals are micro consumers. Some larger microorganisms are secondary consumers. They eat consumers below them on the chain. There are even decomposers in this micro world. Micro food chains can also form the base of larger-scale food chains. Tiny sea creatures, such as krill, eat algae. Krill are food for fish, squid, and even enormous whales. You can move from the smallest to the largest animals on Earth in just a couple of links of a food chain!

微食物链与大型食物链有着相同的环节。 他们从制作人开始。 单细胞藻类利用阳光制造食物，就像植物一样。 再往上一个环节是消费者。 它们吃其他生物。 细菌、真菌和非常小的动物都是微型消费者。 一些较大的微生物是第二消费者。 它们吃掉链上低于自己的消费者。 在这个微观世界里甚至还有分解者。 微型食物链也可以成为大型食物链的基础。 微小的海洋生物，如磷虾，以藻类为食。 磷虾是鱼类、鱿鱼甚至巨型鲸鱼的食物。 从地球上最小的动物到最大的动物，只需要食物链上的几个环节!

Plentiful Plankton The ocean is home to many micro food chains. It is full of living things called plankton— organisms that drift on ocean currents. There are two main types of plankton. Phytoplankton are tiny producers. Just like plants, they use energy from the Sun to make food. Zooplankton are consumers that eat phytoplankton. Phytoplankton might be the most important living things on Earth! They are the base of almost every ocean food chain. They also give off oxygen as they make food from sunlight. Scientists think that most of the oxygen in the atmosphere today may have come from phytoplankton long ago. Phytoplankton even become part of Earth itself. When they die, their shell-like bodies pile up on the ocean floor. Over time, they get buried, and pressure turns the plankton bodies into solid rock. Limestone and chalk are rocks made from ancient plankton.

丰富的浮游生物海洋是许多微食物链的家园。 它充满了被称为浮游生物的生物，这些生物在洋流中漂浮。 浮游生物主要有两种。 浮游植物是微小的生产者。 就像植物一样，它们利用来自太阳的能量来制造食物。 浮游动物是吃浮游植物的消费者。 浮游植物可能是地球上最重要的生物!它们几乎是每条海洋食物链的基础。 它们利用阳光制造食物时也会释放氧气。 科学家认为，今天大气中的大部分氧气可能来自很久以前的浮游植物。 浮游植物甚至成为地球本身的一部分。 它们死后，贝壳状的身体堆积在海底。 随着时间的推移，它们被埋起来，压力把浮游生物的身体变成了坚固的岩石。 石灰石和白垩是由古代浮游生物构成的岩石。

Some zooplankton are made of just a single cell. Others, like krill, are made of many cells. The zooplankton group even includes the eggs and young of some larger animals. For example, clams, crabs, and sea stars spend the first parts of their lives as zooplankton. Zooplankton are also incredibly important to ocean food chains. They are food for sponges, clams, and even whales. These animals filter large amounts of zooplankton from the water. The energy moves up and up the food chain. Do You Know? As plankton die, they sink and become part of marine snow— tiny bits of material such as plant parts and sand that fall through the water from the upper ocean to the ocean floor. Marine snow is an important food source for organisms that live deeper in the ocean.

有些浮游动物只有一个细胞。 其他的，比如磷虾，是由许多细胞组成的。 浮游动物群甚至包括一些大型动物的卵和幼崽。 例如，蛤蜊、螃蟹和海星在它们生命的最初阶段是浮游动物。 浮游动物对海洋食物链也非常重要。 它们是海绵、蛤蜊甚至鲸鱼的食物。 这些动物从水中过滤大量的浮游动物。 能量会沿着食物链向上移动。 你知道吗?当浮游生物死亡时，它们下沉并成为海洋雪的一部分——像植物部分和沙子这样的微小物质，从海洋上层落到海底。 海洋雪是生活在海洋深处的生物的重要食物来源。

Under Your Feet The ocean is not the only place that's full of microorganisms. Micro food chains are right under your feet! Soil is a mixture of small rock particles, dead plant and animal matter, and millions and millions of microorganisms. Bacteria by the billions live in soil. There are plenty of molds and fungi, too. For most of their life cycle, fungi, such as mushrooms, live in soil as tiny, hairlike hyphae (HI-fee). Fungi hyphae grow alongside plant roots. They help the roots take up water, nutrients, and minerals. Without fungi, many crops and trees could not grow. Wowser! Microorganisms even live up in the clouds. They may help form raindrops and snowflakes by providing a surface for water to condense upon.

海洋并不是唯一充满微生物的地方。 微型食物链就在你的脚下!土壤是由微小的岩石颗粒、死去的植物和动物，以及数以百万计的微生物组成的混合物。 数十亿的细菌生活在土壤中。 还有大量的霉菌和真菌。 在它们生命周期的大部分时间里，真菌，如蘑菇，以微小的毛发状菌丝(HI-fee)的形式生活在土壤中。 真菌菌丝沿着植物的根生长。 它们帮助根部吸收水分、营养物质和矿物质。 没有真菌，许多农作物和树木就无法生长。 老古板!微生物甚至生活在云端。 它们可以通过提供水凝结的表面来帮助形成雨滴和雪花。