Table of Contents
- Importance of Forests
- Food Chain
- Production of Oxygen
- Summary
- What’s Next?
In the previous segment, we learned about the different zones/layers of the forest. In this segment, we will learn about the importance of forests.
Why are forests important?
The most important reason to study forests is that they harbour numerous lives, and also play an extremely important role in the ecosystem. Let us understand more about this in detail.
Food chain
The food chain is the sequence of transfer of matter and energy in the form of food from organism to organism. A food chain shows how organisms are related to each other by the food they eat.
Let us understand this with the help of an example:
Generally, we consider plants as the starting point for the food chain as plants make their own food by photosynthesis. Herbivorous animals are dependent on plants for their food while carnivorous animals are dependent on herbivores. Here the flow of energy is from plants to herbivores to carnivores. Now, when any living organism dies, the process of decomposition is carried out by decomposers present in the soil. Hence, decomposers are dependent on dead animals and plants. These small organisms break down the dead body of an organism to useful nutrients. Now, these nutrients which are present in the soil will again be taken up by plants and the chain continues.
Forests play an important role here as they are the best sites for natural food chains to take place.
If we do not have producers, like green plants and trees, the herbivorous animals primary consumers will die out of starvation. And the same will be the case of the carnivores when the herbivores will not be available as food. This chain will be hampered and many species may die due to starvation.
