Desert Food Chain
or Food Web

An Introduction

Follow the Energy Through the Desert

Look across a desert and you might see cactus, shrubs, rabbits, lizards, snakes and hawks. They may look like separate parts of the desert, but they are connected by something they all need:

Energy.

Almost all of that energy starts with the Sun.

Plants capture energy from sunlight. Animals eat the plants. Other animals eat those animals. And when plants and animals die, decomposers help return nutrients to the soil.

That’s a food chain — a path showing how energy moves from one living thing to another.

Here’s one desert example:

SUN → PLANT → KANGAROO RAT → SNAKE → HAWK → DECOMPOSERS

Let’s follow the energy.

1. It Starts With the Sun

The Sun is the main source of energy for most life on Earth.

But a kangaroo rat can’t eat sunlight. Neither can a snake or a hawk.

Plants have to capture that energy first.

SUN — The Energy Source

2. Producers — Desert Plants Make Food

Desert plants are called producers because they can make their own food.

Using sunlight, water and carbon dioxide from the air, green plants make sugars through a process called photosynthesis.

Those sugars contain stored energy that plants use to grow, produce flowers and make seeds.

In the desert, producers include plants such as cactus, creosote bush, mesquite, grasses and wildflowers.

And that stored energy is about to move.

Something eats the plant.

SUN → PLANT

3. Primary Consumers — The Plant Eaters

A kangaroo rat comes out after dark and finds seeds produced by desert plants.

When it eats those seeds, some of the energy stored in the plant becomes energy for the kangaroo rat.

Animals that eat plants are called herbivores. In a food chain, they are often called primary consumers.

Desert primary consumers can include kangaroo rats, jackrabbits, desert tortoises and many insects.

Now our food chain looks like this:

SUN → PLANT → KANGAROO RAT

But the kangaroo rat isn’t the end of the story.

A predator may be nearby.

4. Secondary Consumers — The Predators

A snake doesn’t make its own food, and it doesn’t get its energy directly from the Sun.

It may get energy by eating a kangaroo rat.

Animals that eat other animals are called carnivores. When a predator eats a plant-eating animal, it becomes the next link in the food chain.

SUN → PLANT → KANGAROO RAT → SNAKE

The energy that started as sunlight has now traveled through a plant, into a kangaroo rat and then into a snake.

And the journey may not be over.

5. Top Predators

High above the desert, a hawk searches the ground for prey.

Hawks can eat rodents, reptiles and other small animals. If a hawk eats a snake, energy moves one more step through our food chain.

SUN → PLANT → KANGAROO RAT → SNAKE → HAWK

The hawk is a top predator in this example because nothing else in this particular chain eats the hawk.

But real desert ecosystems are much more complicated than a single straight line.

6. What About Omnivores and Scavengers?

Not every desert animal fits neatly into one step of a food chain.

Omnivores eat both plants and animals. Coyotes, for example, may eat fruits, insects, rodents and other small animals.

Scavengers feed on animals that are already dead. Turkey vultures are important desert scavengers.

These animals connect different food chains together and help create a much larger food web.

7. Decomposers — Nature’s Recyclers

What happens when a plant or animal dies?

The story isn’t over.

Bacteria, fungi and other decomposers break down dead organic material. In the process, nutrients are returned to the environment, where they can eventually be used by plants again.

Think of decomposers as some of nature’s great recyclers.

From a Food Chain to a Food Web

Our simple example looks like this:

SUN → PLANT → KANGAROO RAT → SNAKE → HAWK

But a kangaroo rat can be eaten by more than a snake. A hawk can eat more than snakes. A coyote eats many different foods.

When all those food chains connect, they form a food web.

A food web is a better picture of what really happens in nature — hundreds or even thousands of feeding relationships connecting plants and animals throughout an ecosystem.

Why Food Chains Matter

Every link has a job.

Plants capture energy from sunlight.

Herbivores move that energy from plants into the animal world.

Predators help control animal populations.

Scavengers clean up remains.

Decomposers recycle nutrients.

Together, they form an ecosystem in which the lives of desert plants and animals are connected.

So the next time you see a hawk circling over the desert, think about where its energy came from.

Trace the chain backward:

HAWK ← SNAKE ← KANGAROO RAT ← PLANT ← SUN

That hawk flying overhead is powered by energy that began its journey with sunlight.

Watch: How the Desert Food Chain Works

See the desert food chain in action in our video. Follow energy from the Sun through plants, plant eaters and predators, and discover how all the pieces connect to form a desert food web.