Biology · Glossary

What is Food chain, food web?

Definition 26.5 University Biology — Year 1 · Chapter 26 — Ecosystems and Trophic Structure

A food chain is a sequence of organisms each eating the one before: grass, grasshopper, frog, snake, hawk. In a real community each species eats several and is eaten by several, and the chains interlock into a food web, whose arrows point from the eaten to the eater — in the direction of the energy. Chains are short: rarely more than four or five links, for a reason the next section gives.

A simplified food web of a clear spring. Arrows point from food to eater, in the direction of energy flow; most species eat at more than one level, and everything ends with the decomposers.
A simplified food web of a clear spring. Arrows point from food to eater, in the direction of energy flow; most species eat at more than one level, and everything ends with the decomposers.
A limestone spring: a producer layer of eelgrass and algae in full light, and above it the consumers that the first ecological energy budget was drawn for.
A limestone spring: a producer layer of eelgrass and algae in full light, and above it the consumers that the first ecological energy budget was drawn for.
Read in context →