What's the difference between 1st and 2nd order consumers?

Question

I know pretty much what they are, but I'm confused on the order. In an animal pyramid, it goes like this:

Tetiary Consumers

Secondary Consumers

Primary Consumers

Producers

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I just want to make sure I'm right that the first order consumers are the primary consumers, and the second order consumers are the secondary consumers? Or is it backwards, or some other order?

Please help! Thank you...

Answer 1

Well, you start out with the producers, like plants that produce their own food through photosynthesis. This is also called an autotroph.

Then you have the primary consumer. I would guess you could call this a 1st order consumer...but that would be an animal that consumes the producers, like an insect that eats plants.

Next is the secondary consumer, or the 2nd order consumer, I guess...and that eats the insect, that consumed the plants. A fish could then be a secondary consumer.

Finally is that tertiary consumer, which would be the person or the bear who eats the fish, who ate the insect, which ate the plant.

ALL organisms that don't produce their own food, all of the consumers, are also called heterotrophs.

Answer 2

First Order Consumers would be the primary consumers.

Answer 3

"First-order consumer – an animal that eats green plants directly (herbivore).

Second-order consumer – an animal that eats animals that eat green plants, (omnivore, carnivore).

Third-order consumers – an animal that eats second-order consumers (carnivore)."