Desert Food Chains

Gr 1–3—Similar in scope and overall approach to the publisher's "Protecting Food Chains" series (2011) but aimed at a younger audience, these studies progress from examining each element in a simple food chain to a more complex one. They then move on to a food web, before ending with very brief observations about environmental damage and conservation efforts. Each volume focuses on three selected examples of a particular habitat and in accessible language—general enough to be similar, though not identical, from volume to volume—explains the relationships among the elements in the chain or web from plant or other energy producer to top predator. Along with simplified world maps (oversimplified in Desert Food Chains, as Antarctica is not included in the tally), the illustrations include photos of flora and fauna caught in natural settings but not in the midst of actually chowing down. Consider this series as a geographically broader alternative to Paul Fleisher's "Early Bird Food Webs" (Lerner, 2008).