Food chains & food webs (article) | Ecology | Khan Academy (2024)

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What is the answer to the question food chain and food web? ›

Each living thing is a part of multiple food chains – for example, grass is a part of the food chain: grass → grasshopper → frog → snake → eagle, and also of the food chain: grass → deer → tiger. All of the interconnected and overlapping food chains in a habitat make up a food web.

A food chain outlines who eats whom. A food web is all of the food chains in an ecosystem. Each organism in an ecosystem occupies a specific trophic level or position in the food chain or web. Producers, who make their own food using photosynthesis or chemosynthesis, make up the bottom of the trophic pyramid.

A food chain is a linear sequence of organisms through which nutrients and energy pass as one organism eats another. In a food chain, each organism occupies a different trophic level, defined by how many energy transfers separate it from the basic input of the chain.

Each level of consumption in a food chain is called a trophic level. The table gives one example of a food chain and the trophic levels represented in it.

A food chain refers to the order of events in an ecosystem, where one living organism eats another organism, and later that organism is consumed by another larger organism. The flow of nutrients and energy from one organism to another at different trophic levels forms a food chain.

A food web consists of all the food chains in a single ecosystem. Each living thing in an ecosystem is part of multiple food chains. Each food chain is one possible path that energy and nutrients may take as they move through the ecosystem.

Food chains are important because they show the intricate relationships in ecosystems. They can reveal how each organism depends on someone else for survival. Food chains also display what happens when a problem occurs and a producer or consumer is lost.

The animal that stands at the top of the food chain, other than human beings, varies depending on the ecosystem. In the ocean, it would be a predator such as the great white shark or killer whale. On land, it would be a predator such as the lion or the polar bear.

An example of a food chain could begin with algae, which is eaten by small fish, which is eaten by larger fish, which is eaten by a crane, which is eaten by a hawk. Another example starts with grass, which is eaten by a grasshopper, which is eaten by a frog, which is eaten by a snake, which is eaten by a hawk.

The ten percent rule states that each trophic level can only give 10% of its energy to the next level. The other 90% is used to live, grow, reproduce and is lost to the environment as heat. All energy pyramids start with energy from the Sun which is transferred to the first trophic level of producers.

Who is the largest food chain? ›

McDonald's is the world's largest restaurant chain. And now, there's a new second - al.com.

On average only 10 percent of energy available at one trophic level is passed on to the next. This is known as the 10 percent rule, and it limits the number of trophic levels an ecosystem can support.

The food chain describes who eats whom in the wild. Every living thing—from one-celled algae to giant blue whales (Balaenoptera musculus)—needs food to survive. Each food chain is a possible pathway that energy and nutrients can follow through the ecosystem. For example, grass produces its own food from sunlight.

prey. noun. animal that is hunted and eaten by other animals.

A food chain is a basic network that shows the linear flow of nutrients and energy from one trophic level to another. A food web is a multitude of interconnected food chains at many trophic levels.

Both a food chain and a food web show the transfer of energy through an ecosystem, from autotrophs to final consumers. However, they have a number of differences. A food chain only shows one path of energy transfer, whereas a food web shows the interactions of all the energy pathways in the ecosystem.

A food chain describes how energy and nutrients move through an ecosystem. At the basic level there are plants that produce the energy, then it moves up to higher-level organisms like herbivores. After that when carnivores eat the herbivores, energy is transferred from one to the other.

Food chains show a single path of energy flow through and ecosystem. It shows a single item that an organism eats, but a food web shows all the different paths of energy flow and multiple items organisms eat.