essay about food web

What Is a Food Web? Definition, Types, and Examples

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Food Web Definition

Trophic levels in a food web, energy movement, food web vs. food chain, types of food webs, importance of the study of food webs.

A food web is a detailed interconnecting diagram that shows the overall food relationships between organisms in a particular environment. The simplest explanation is that food webs are "who eats whom" diagrams showing the complex feeding relationships for a specific ecosystem.

The study of food webs is important, as such webs can show how energy flows through an ecosystem . It also helps us understand how toxins and pollutants become concentrated within a particular ecosystem. Examples include mercury bioaccumulation in the Florida Everglades and mercury accumulation in the San Francisco Bay.

Food webs can also help us study and explain how species diversity is related to how they fit within the overall food dynamic. They may also reveal critical information about the relationships between invasive species and those native to a particular ecosystem.

Key Takeaways: What Is a Food Web?

• Think of a food web as a "who eats whom" diagram showing an ecosystem's complex feeding relationships.
• Knowing the interconnectedness of organisms in energy transfer within an ecosystem is vital to understanding food webs and how they apply to real-world science.
• An increase in toxic substances, like man-made persistent organic pollutants (POPs), can profoundly impact ecosystem species.
• By analyzing food webs, scientists can study and predict how substances move through the ecosystem to help prevent the bioaccumulation and biomagnification of harmful substances.

The concept of a food web, previously known as a food cycle, is typically credited to Charles Elton, who first introduced it in his book Animal Ecology, published in 1927. He is considered one of the founders of modern ecology and his book is a seminal work. In this book, he also introduced other important ecological concepts like niche and succession .

In a food web, organisms are arranged according to their trophic level. An organism's trophic level refers to how it fits within the food web and is based on how it feeds. 

There are two main designations: autotrophs and heterotrophs. Autotrophs make their food, while heterotrophs do not. Within this broad designation are five main trophic levels: primary producers, primary consumers, secondary consumers, tertiary consumers, and apex predators.

A food web shows how the different trophic levels within various food chains interconnect and how energy flows through them within an ecosystem.

Primary Producers

Primary producers make their food via photosynthesis, which uses the sun's energy to make food by converting its light energy into chemical energy. Examples of primary producers include plants and algae. These organisms are also known as autotrophs.

Primary Consumers

Primary consumers are animals that eat the primary producers. They are named as such because they are the first organisms to eat the primary producers who make their own food. Primary consumers are also known as herbivores. Examples of animals in this designation are rabbits, beavers, elephants , and moose.

Secondary Consumers

Secondary consumers consist of organisms that eat primary consumers. Since secondary consumers are animals that eat the animals that eat the plants, they are called carnivorous or omnivorous. Carnivores eat animals, while omnivores consume both other animals and plants. Bears are an example of a secondary consumer.

Tertiary Consumers

Similar to secondary consumers, tertiary consumers can be carnivorous or omnivorous. The difference is that secondary consumers eat other carnivores. An example is an eagle.

Apex Predators

Lastly, the final level is composed of apex predators . Apex predators are at the top because they do not have natural predators. Lions are an example.

Decomposers and Detritivores

Additionally, organisms known as decomposers consume dead plants and animals and break them down. Fungi are examples of decomposers. Other organisms known as detritivores consume dead organic material. A vulture is an example of a detrivore.

Energy flows through the different trophic levels. It begins with the sun's energy, which autotrophs use to produce food. This energy is transferred up the levels as the different organisms are consumed by members of the levels above them.

Approximately 10% of the energy transferred from one trophic level to the next is converted to biomass—the overall mass of an organism or the mass of all the organisms that exist in a given trophic level.

Since organisms expend energy to move around and go about their daily activities, only a part of the energy consumed is stored as biomass.

VectorMine / Getty Images

While a food web contains all constituent food chains in an ecosystem, food chains are a different construct. A food web can be composed of multiple food chains, some very short and others much longer. Food chains follow the flow of energy as it moves through the chain. The starting point is the energy from the sun, and this energy is traced as it moves through the food chain. This movement is typically linear, from one organism to another.

For example, a short food chain may consist of plants that use the sun's energy to produce their food through photosynthesis and the herbivore that consumes these plants. This herbivore may be eaten by two different carnivores, which are a part of this food chain. When these carnivores are killed or die, the decomposers in the chain break down the carnivores, returning nutrients to the soil that can be used by plants.

This brief chain is one of many parts of the overall food web that exists in an ecosystem. Other food chains in the food web for this particular ecosystem may be very similar to this example or may be much different. 

Since it is composed of all of the food chains in an ecosystem, the food web shows how the organisms in an ecosystem interconnect.

Blueringmedia / Getty Images

There are several types of food webs, which differ in how they are constructed and what they show or emphasize about the organisms within the particular ecosystem depicted.

Scientists can use connectance and interaction food webs, along with energy flow, fossil, and functional food webs, to depict different aspects of the relationships within an ecosystem. They can also further classify the types of food webs based on the ecosystem being depicted in the web.

Connectance Food Webs

In a connectance food web, scientists use arrows to show one species being consumed by another. All of the arrows are equally weighted. The degree of strength of the consumption of one species by another is not depicted.

Interaction Food Webs

Like in connectance food webs, scientists also use arrows in interaction food webs to show one species being consumed by another. However, the arrows used are weighted to show the degree or strength of consumption of one species by another.

The arrows depicted in such arrangements can be wider, bolder, or darker to denote the strength of consumption if one species typically consumes another. If the interaction between species is weak, the arrow can be very narrow or nonexistent.

Energy Flow Food Webs

Energy flow food webs depict the relationships between organisms in an ecosystem by quantifying and showing the energy flux between organisms.

Fossil Food Webs

Food webs can be dynamic, and the food relationships within an ecosystem can change over time. Scientists attempt to reconstruct the relationships between species in a fossil food web based on available evidence from the fossil record.

Functional Food Webs

Functional food webs depict the relationships between organisms in an ecosystem by depicting how different populations influence the growth rate of other populations within the environment.

Food Webs and Type of Ecosystems

Scientists can also subdivide the above types of food webs based on the type of ecosystem. For example, an energy-flow aquatic food web would depict the energy flux relationships in an aquatic environment. In contrast, an energy-flow terrestrial food web would show such relationships on land.

Food webs show us how energy moves through an ecosystem, from the sun to producers to consumers. The interconnectedness of how organisms are involved in this energy transfer within an ecosystem is vital to understanding food webs and how they apply to real-world science.

Just as energy can move through an ecosystem, other substances can also move through. There can be devastating effects when toxic substances or poisons are introduced into an ecosystem.

Bioaccumulation and biomagnification are important concepts. Bioaccumulation is the accumulation of a substance, like poison or a contaminant, in an animal. Biomagnification refers to the buildup and increase in the concentration of said substance as it is passed from trophic level to trophic level in a food web.

This increase in toxic substances can profoundly impact species within an ecosystem. For example, man-made synthetic chemicals often do not break down easily or quickly and can build up in an animal's fatty tissues over time. These substances are known as persistent organic pollutants (POPs).

Marine environments are common examples of how these toxic substances can move, such as from phytoplankton to zooplankton, then to fish that eat the zooplankton, then to other fish (like salmon) who eat those fish, and up to orca who eat salmon. Orcas have a high blubber content so the POPs can be found at very high levels. These levels can cause several issues like reproductive problems, developmental issues with their young as well as immune system issues.

By analyzing and understanding food webs, scientists can study and predict how substances may move through the ecosystem. They can then better help prevent the bioaccumulation and biomagnification of these toxic substances in the environment through intervention.

• “ Food Webs and Networks: the Architecture of Biodiversity .” Life Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign , Biology Department.
• “ 11.4: Food Chains and Food Webs .” Geosciences LibreTexts , Libretexts.
• “ Terrestrial Food Webs .” Smithsonian Environmental Research Center.
• “ Bioaccumulation and Biomagnification: Increasingly Concentrated Problems! ” CIMI School.
• Food Chains and Food Webs: Learn the Difference
• Energy Flow in Ecosystems
• What Are Biotic and Abiotic Factors in an Ecosystem?
• Why Choosing Nectar-Rich Plants for a Garden Is So Important
• How Does Mercury Get in Fish?
• What Is an Indicator Species? 10 Key Examples
• Why Flowering Meadows Are Better Than Lawns
• What Is a Trophic Cascade? Definition and Ecological Impact
• What Is a Pioneer Species?
• Lichens in a Garden and What They Tell You
• Understanding the Sustainable Seafood Industry
• Types of Forests: Definitions, Examples, and Importance
• What Is Glitter? Environmental Impact and Sustainable Alternatives
• 10 Stunning Plants and Sea Creatures on the Ocean Floor
• Male Spiders Fight Less When There Are More Females Around
• 3 Types of Biodiversity: Overview and Importance

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Food Web: Concept and Applications

Introduction

There are two types of food chains: the grazing food chain, beginning with autotrophs, and the detrital food chain, beginning with dead organic matter (Smith & Smith 2009). In a grazing food chain, energy and nutrients move from plants to the herbivores consuming them, and to the carnivores or omnivores preying upon the herbivores. In a detrital food chain, dead organic matter of plants and animals is broken down by decomposers, e.g., bacteria and fungi, and moves to detritivores and then carnivores.

Food web offers an important tool for investigating the ecological interactions that define energy flows and predator-prey relationship (Cain et al. 2008). Figure 1 shows a simplified food web in a desert ecosystem. In this food web, grasshoppers feed on plants; scorpions prey on grasshoppers; kit foxes prey on scorpions. While the food web showed here is a simple one, most feed webs are complex and involve many species with both strong and weak interactions among them (Pimm et al. 1991). For example, the predators of a scorpion in a desert ecosystem might be a golden eagle, an owl, a roadrunner, or a fox.

The idea to apply the food chains to ecology and to analyze its consequences was first proposed by Charles Elton (Krebs 2009). In 1927, he recognized that the length of these food chains was mostly limited to 4 or 5 links and the food chains were not isolated, but hooked together into food webs (which he called "food cycles"). The feeding interactions represented by the food web may have profound effects on species richness of community, and ecosystem productivity and stability (Ricklefs 2008).

Types of Food Webs

Applications of food webs, food webs are constructed to describe species interactions (direct relationships)..

The fundamental purpose of food webs is to describe feeding relationship among species in a community. Food webs can be constructed to describe the species interactions. All species in the food webs can be distinguished into basal species (autotrophs, such as plants), intermediate species (herbivores and intermediate level carnivores, such as grasshopper and scorpion) or top predators (high level carnivores such as fox) (Figure 1).

These feeding groups are referred as trophic levels. Basal species occupy the lowest trophic level as primary producer. They convert inorganic chemical and use solar energy to generate chemical energy. The second trophic level consists of herbivores. These are first consumers. The remaining trophic levels include carnivores that consume animals at trophic levels below them. The second consumers (trophic level 3) in the desert food web include birds and scorpions, and tertiary consumers making up the fourth trophic level include bird predators and foxes. Grouping all species into different functional groups or tropic levels helps us simplify and understand the relationships among these species.

Food webs can be used to illustrate indirect interactions among species.

Indirect interaction occurs when two species do not interact with each other directly, but influenced by a third species. Species can influence one another in many different ways. One example is the keystone predation are demonstrated by Robert Paine in an experiment conducted in the rocky intertidal zone (Cain et al. 2008; Smith & Smith 2009; Molles 2010). This study showed that predation can influence the competition among species in a food web. The intertidal zone is home to a variety of mussels, barnacles, limpets, and chitons (Paine 1969). All these invertebrate herbivores are preyed upon by the predator starfish Pisaster (Figure 3). Starfish was relatively uncommon in the intertidal zone, and considered less important in the community. When Paine manually removed the starfish from experimental plots while leaving other areas undisturbed as control plots, he found that the number of prey species in the experimental plots dropped from 15 at the beginning of the experiment to 8 (a loss of 7 species) two years after the starfish removal while the total of prey species remained the same in the control plots. He reasoned that in the absence of the predator starfish, several of the mussel and barnacle species (that were superior competitors) excluded the other species and reduced overall diversity in the community (Smith & Smith 2009). Predation by starfish reduced the abundance of mussel and opened up space for other species to colonize and persist. This type of indirect interaction is called keystone predation.

Food webs can be used to study bottom-up or top-down control of community structure.

Top-down control occurs when the population density of a consumer can control that of its resource, for example, predator populations can control the abundance of prey species (Power 1992). Under top-down control, the abundance or biomass of lower trophic levels depends on effects from consumers at higher trophic levels. A trophic cascade is a type of top-down interaction that describes the indirect effects of predators. In a trophic cascade, predators induce effects that cascade down the food chain and affect biomass of organisms at least two links away (Ricklefs 2008). Nelson Hairston, Frederick Smith and Larry Slobodkin first introduced the concept of top-down control with the frequently quoted "the world is green" proposition (Power 1992; Smith & Smith 2009). They proposed that the world is green because carnivores depress herbivores and keep herbivore populations in check. Otherwise, herbivores would consume most of the vegetation. Indeed, a bird exclusion study demonstrated that there were significantly more insects and leaf damage in plots without birds compared to the control (Marquis & Whelan 1994).

Food webs can be used to reveal different patterns of energy transfer in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems.

As a diagram tool, food web has been approved to be effective in illustrating species interactions and testing research hypotheses. It will continue to be very helpful for us to understand the associations of species richness/diversity with food web complexity, ecosystem productivity, and stability.

References and Recommended Reading

Cain, M. L., Bowman, W. D. & Hacker, S. D. Ecology . Sunderland MA: Sinauer Associate Inc. 2008.

Cebrian, J. Patterns in the fate of production in plant communities. American Naturalist 154 , 449-468 (1999)

Cebrian, J. Role of first-order consumers in ecosystem carbon flow. Ecology Letters 7 , 232-240 (2004)

Elton, C. S. Animal Ecology . Chicago, MI: University of Chicago Press, 1927, Republished 2001.

Knight, T. M., et al. Trophic cascades across ecosystems. Nature 437 , 880-883 (2005)

Krebs, C. J. Ecology 6 th ed. San Francisco CA: Pearson Benjamin Cummings, 2009.

Marquis, R. J. & Whelan, C. Insectivorous birds increase growth of white oak through consumption of leaf-chewing insects. Ecology 75 , 2007-2017 (1994)

Molles, M. C. Jr. Ecology: Concepts and Applications 5 th ed. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Higher Education, 2010.

Paine, R. T. The Pisaster-Tegula interaction: Prey parches, predator food preferences and intertide community structure. Ecology 60 , 950-961 (1969)

Paine, R. T. Food web complexity and species diversity. The American Naturalist 100 , 65-75 (1966)

Paine, R. T. Food webs: Linkage, interaction strength and community infrastructure. Journal of Animal Ecology 49 , 667-685 (1980)

Pimm, S. L., Lawton, J. H. & Cohen, J. E. Food web patterns and their consequences. Nature 350 , 669-674 (1991)

Power, M. E. Top-down and bottom-up forces in food webs: do plants have primacy? Ecology 73 , 733-746 (1992)

Schoender, T. W. Food webs from the small to the large. Ecology 70 , 1559-1589 (1989)

Shurin, J. B., Gruner, D. S. & Hillebrand, H. All wet dried up? Real differences between aquatic and terrestrial food webs. Proc. R. Soc. B 273 , 1-9 (2006) doi:10.1098/rspb.2005.3377

Smith, T. M. & Smith, R. L. Elements of Ecology 7 th ed. San Francisco CA: Pearson Benjamin Cummings, 2009.

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Food Chains and Webs

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. Primary consumers, mostly herbivores, exist at the next level, and secondary and tertiary consumers, omnivores and carnivores, follow. At the top of the system are the apex predators: animals who have no predators other than humans.

Help your class explore food chains and webs with these resources.

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Home — Essay Samples — Environment — Natural Environment — Food Web: An Exploration of Ecological Relationships

Food Web: an Exploration of Ecological Relationships

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Published: Sep 12, 2023

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Defining the food web, unveiling ecological relationships, promoting understanding through visual representation.

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Food Web and Impact of Environmental Degradation Research Paper

Introduction, solution i: conservation, solution ii: promotion of sustainable practices.

The food web is a natural interconnection that describes the manner in which energy is transferred from organism A to B, thereby supporting the survival of both plants and animals. Human beings form an important aspect or part of the food web since they are capable of engaging in activities and making decisions that could transform the overall experiences and outcomes of all other living organisms. Any form of obliteration will make it impossible for people to live sustainability and eventually achieve their goals. The questions of posterity remain critical and are capable of guiding more people and global leaders to make timely decisions and transform in an effort to maintain the integrity of the food web. Nonetheless, various problems exist today that have the potential to affect the food web and make it impossible for more people to get fresh, timely, and high-quality food. Moreover, these issues can also threaten the sustainability of the other organisms that rely on humans for food (Herforth & Ahmed, 2015). As of now, one of the most outstanding urgent problems disorienting the integrity of the food chain is that of environmental degradation.

Environmental degradation refers to the gradual decay of the environment due to the exhaustion of its natural resources, thus reducing the environment’s ability to sustain social and ecological objectives. This is as true as ever when applied to the food web, as there are few ecological systems that are as immediately important to the survival of humanity and other species that rely on it. The problem is multifaceted and affects all factors of production, results in a reduced downpour, catalyzes the speed of global warming, and eventually transforms human life in a negative manner (Trzcinski et al., 2016). Hence, evidence-based efforts and solutions would be needed in an effort to protect the integrity of the food web. Conservation efforts and promotion of sustainable practices are solutions that can help human beings protect the natural environment from continuous degradation and improve the effectiveness and naturalness of the food web (Tefft et al., 2017). Therefore, the effort to stop the disruption and degradation of the food web and the adverse effects associated with it should focus on promoting conservation and sustainable practices.

A brief note on terminology is necessary in the interests of greater clarity. While it might appear that ‘conservation’ and ‘sustainable practices’ refer to the exact same thing by different names, this is not the case. In the course of this paper, ‘conservation’ refers to the preservation of natural resources that are, in any way, involved in the functioning of the food web. On the other hand, ‘sustainable practices’ refers to the wide range of activities that contribute to the long-term maintenance and efficiency of the food web. To illustrate, an agricultural producer rotating crops to ensure that the soil maintains its fertility is an example of conservation. The end customer buying and eating one loaf of bread instead of buying two, eating one, and let the other one go to waste is an example of sustainable practice. Thus, while ‘conservation’ is essentially resource-centric, ‘sustainable practices’ is a broader term that encompasses all manner of activities that mitigate the existing negative impacts on or prevent potential harm to the food web.

Description

There are several binding reasons why humanity should devote its efforts to the conservation of natural environments and prevention of the negative effects associated with the disruption of existing ecological networks. Human beings are the primary stakeholders in the food web since they are more capable of making timely decisions and influencing the existence of other creatures than the other species present on the planet. Moreover, human activities, ranging from predatory exploitation of natural resources to unsafe industrial and agricultural practices resulting in environmental pollution, are one of the foremost factors that threaten the food web. As such, humanity is required to consider evidence-based approaches and solutions to protect the food web from the urgent problem of environmental degradation from practical and moral standpoints alike (International Resource Panel, 2016). Natural and habited environments play significant roles in supporting the food web and ensuring that man gets high-quality food from all the available sources. However, problems of deforestation and overuse of natural resources strain ecosystems and eventually trigger climatic changes, threatening the stability of the food web, the production and reproduction of food, and the access to it.

The list of challenges pertaining to the food web and associated with deforestation as well as other forms of natural resources exhaustion can be long and extensive. Still, it is necessary to cover it at least briefly in order to demonstrate the magnitude of the problem and the acute need for the solution. First of all, poor climatic outcomes and weather changes tend to affect the level of food production, thereby triggering droughts and increased poverty levels (Bieg et al., 2018). Specific agricultural cycles are tied to climate and weather conditions, meaning that the disruption of these will affect agricultural production as well. This leads to the second challenge inherently rooted in environmental degradation: most animals, including human beings, will be unable to lead a healthy and comfortable life. Moreover, it is necessary to look further than the immediate effects of environmental degradation and consider the long-term implications of the food web disruption. Thus, the third reason to engage in conservation efforts is that unaddressed challenges will eventually affect the overall integrity of the natural environment and affect posterity.

To summarize, the preservation of natural environments and ecological networks is essential in many respects, including the production of foods. Environmental disruptions threaten to upset the production and distribution of foods for a wide range of creatures, including humans and other animals. As a primary stakeholder in the food web and the actor best equipped to introduce impactful change, whether for better or for worse, humanity has an obligation to protect the food web from environmental degradation. Therefore, the first evidence-based solution to the problem of gradual environmental decay and its negative impact on the food web is the introduction and promotion of conservation efforts.

Potential Critique Points

The paragraphs above demonstrated the importance of preserving natural environments from disruption for the continued and reliable functioning of the food web. As will be shown below, this first solution gains the support of many professionals and experts in food security and environmental conservation as a means of addressing the challenges facing humanity in this respect. When undertook at a sufficient magnitude, this solution can ensure that more people or stakeholders are involved in supporting the delivery of sustainable results.

As a strategy, conservation offers several key strengths that should not be overlooked, and the first of these is that it has the potential to reduce destruction that otherwise affects the food web negatively. As mentioned above, gradual environmental decay and disruption of existing ecological networks threaten the stability of the food web because they affect the underlying factors of its functioning. Depletion of natural resources, such as freshwater or soil, can cause agriculture to become less efficient or even impossible. On a larger scale, environmental disruption can also affect weather conditions, which impacts the practicability of food production to a considerable degree. Even though the damage is not necessarily permanent, it still takes time for the environment to recover after thorough exploitation. Proper conservation measures will promote the overall sustainability of the natural environment and ensure that the food chains recover within a short time (Janmaimool & Chudech, 2020). As a result, conservation may provide for a swifter recovery of the environment, which, in turn, will prevent the depletion of vital resources and the inevitable challenges to the food web that come with it.

Another key strength associated with conservation as an option for safeguarding the environment from degradation and ensuring the stability of the food web is the practical plausibility of this solution. It was already mentioned that humanity is well-posed to mitigate or alleviate the effects of environmental decay in relative terms – that is, better able to address the problem than the other species. More importantly still, humans are also well-equipped to deal with the issue in absolute terms. Conservation efforts are possible since human beings already possess the relevant knowledge, competencies, and resources and can use these to prevent the ongoing degradation of natural environments and ecological networks that permeate them. Past studies and observations have revealed that the implementation of conservation efforts can help overcome most of the problems affecting the global community, such as climate change and global warming (Muro-Torres et al., 2020). The question is not in humanity’s capability of enacting these measures but solely in the allocation of resources and the presence of the political will. Thus, one more significant advantage of this solution is that it is certainly practically possible, and the means are already known.

One more essential strength inherent in conservation as a solution is the fact that virtually anyone can contribute to it, even if to a small degree. Conservation efforts have far-reaching positive effects that go beyond the immediate positive impact on the food web. Using natural resources skillfully and managing them rationally is crucial to ensure stable and reliable production of foods, but its positive implications extend even further than that. The implementation of such efforts will make the natural environment more sustainable and help solve a wide range of issues, including pollution and overuse of natural resources. Yet all of these depend directly on the magnitude of the efforts undertaken, and this in turn, depends on the number of actors involved. The key advantage of conservation is that all human beings can be involved in it, both at the domestic level and the environmental level (Maynard et al., 2020). To summarize, conservation as a solution has a comparatively low entry threshold because anyone can prevent wasting natural resources through one’s actions. This fact, in turn, means that the solution proposed allows involving a considerable number of actors.

Unfortunately, a number of key concerns arise that human beings should take into consideration if they are to achieve desirable results, and the first group of these weaknesses is purely practical. While humanity as a howl possesses the means to enact efficient conservation measures, it does not mean that every actor is equally well-equipped to do so. To begin with, regional difficulties, such as prolonged droughts, may prevent countries and entire regions from embracing the power of conservation efforts to the fullest extent. Secondly, some communities and developing nations might find it hard to implement proper measures to promote conservation (Surya et al., 2020). Under dire conditions, the primary goal is to deliver the sorely lacking resources, including food, to the community members as soon as possible. In this case, such communities and even nations can view predatory exploitation of natural resources as a preferable approach as compared to conservation if it offers higher yields in less time. In other words, while humanity, in general, is definitely capable of enacting efficient conservation efforts to preserve the food web, this estimation does not apply equally to all actors.

The second group of weaknesses associated with conservation as a strategy considers the subjective perception of environmental degradation as a problem. First of all, many people in all parts of the world do not identify environmental degradation as a major challenge affecting the food web. If people do not view the decay of the environment as a problem in the first place, they are not likely to perceive it as a genuine threat to the food web either.

Moreover, even if the people do not deny the idea of environmental degradation as an actual issue, they may still fail to link it with the food web for several reasons. Industrialization and urbanization discourage more people from focusing on the challenges affecting the food web because of their effect on population distribution between rural and urban areas and the division of labor. To put it simply, a considerable proportion of the population in developed industrialized nations is not involved in food production directly. Consequently, they remain unaware of the possible disorientations in the food supply chain and how it could affect them in the future. This lack of awareness will likely affect the efficiency of conservation efforts negatively unless the actors involved take corresponding measures to inform the population and emphasize the necessity of conservation.

Suggestions for Improvement

In order to facilitate conservation efforts and mitigate environmental degradation and its effect on the food web, it is possible to address some of the identified weaknesses through targeted action. First of all, as the efficiency of the efforts depends directly on the number of dedicated actors participating in them, attracting more countries and governments can help improve the targeted results. This approach will require a certain degree of flexibility, as not every nation is equally prepared and well-equipped to undertake large-scale conservation efforts, but this is a necessary challenge to overcome. Additionally, governments can provide additional training and guidelines to help more people embrace the concept of conservation (Lindgren et al., 2018). Promoting the idea will result in more people becoming aware of the necessity to contribute t the preservation of natural resources. When undertaken consistently and purposefully, continuous improvement efforts can help transform the situation and address the selected problem affecting the food web. Timely provision of resources and careful revaluation of ad hoc strategies for each country and region will be crucial for the conservation strategy to succeed in addressing the issue.

The second solution that should also be efficient in addressing the urgent problem currently facing the food web is the promotion of sustainable practices. Mush like with the conservation efforts, sustainable practices are well-known, evidence-based, and capable of delivering timely results in an efficient and reliable manner. The most appropriate measures would be to conserve energy, consider proper initiatives to produce food at the personal level, and engage in sustainable agricultural practices. Individuals can introduce better procedures for producing and preserving food in their respective households as well as contribute to solving problems that might emerge. Better preservation techniques can help boost the effectiveness of the food web and prevent edible products from wasting. Moreover, households, companies, communities, and governments can seek approaches and impose policies that stress sustainability in a wide range of human activities for a better overall result. Just as conservation preserves the existing resources from irresponsible predatory exploitation, sustainable practices ensure that the products made with the use of these resources are employed more efficiently, reducing the load on the food web.

One crucial strength that makes sustainable practices a preferable strategy to address the issues with the food web is its high and nearly universal applicability. As a consequence, this solution is capable of delivering positive results within a short period because it attracts all possible partners. Individual citizens can take the initiative at the personal level to ensure that the integrity of the food web is maintained by adopting and promoting responsible food use and reducing food waste. On an organizational level, companies and households could be involved to maximize the efficiency of their resource use as it pertains to the food web functioning, reducing the need for additional resource intake. On municipal, regional, and national levels, governments should be involved to educate members of the public and provide the relevant ideas to preserve or promote the effectiveness of the food web. On the international level, countries and nations should cooperate and make binding agreements regarding sustainable practices, including those that pertain directly to the food web. Overall, there is a potential contribution available for every conceivable actor and a wide range of opportunities to impact the food web positively.

Another essential strength associated with sustainable practices as a strategy is its potential to attract new participants. Much like with the conservation strategy discussed above, the efficiency of sustainable practices depends directly on the magnitude of the fort and, therefore, on the number and prominence of the actors involved. As mentioned in the previous paragraph, sustainable practices have the advantage of providing swift, measurable, and quantifiable results, such as the reduction in food waste or an increase in the resource use efficiency by producers. Consequently, when such measures are taken, the chances are high that the international community will eventually detect positive results and recognize the efficiency of this solution (Turner et al., 2018). With this being the case, the number of national and international actors that embrace sustainable practices will probably grow, increasing the efficiency of the measure synergistically. Thus, the relative practicability of sustainable practices and their potential for delivering robust data in the shape of easily identifiable and measurable results should make this particular solution more appealing to potential participants worldwide.

While the proposed measures are attainable and capable of delivering positive results, one should also be aware of the gaps that might affect the targeted outcomes. The weaknesses of sustainable practices as a strategy are largely the same that the ones inherent in conservation efforts and primarily concern the attraction of new participants. Previous paragraphs mentioned that sustainable practices that deliver swift and quantifiable results would likely be efficient in enlisting cooperation. However, this effect will only occur if the actors are willing to prevent or mitigate the threats to the food web and simply seek the best strategy. This is where the problem lies: not all organizations and governments could be willing to be part of this process and promote the notion of sustainability in the first place (Ritchie & Roser, 2020). Additionally, while sustainable practices are technically available to all kinds of actors, people might not have access to the financial and material resources to support sustainable solutions in their respective households. These considerations may limit the overall effectiveness of sustainable practices as a solution to address the problem affecting the food web.

Overcoming the challenges associated with attracted new actors and increasing the magnitude and overall effect of sustainable practices are crucial for the success of this solution. It is necessary to involve as many key stakeholders as possible in order to achieve meaningful positive results. The solution has to be present at all levels, including individuals, households, companies, municipal, regional, and national administrations, and international organizations. Apart from that, every possible effort has to be undertaken to broaden the scope of sustainable practices. Humans need to consider additional practices that protect all living things, including plants and animals. Research would be needed to identify specific challenges affecting the food web in different countries and regions and proposed better solutions to make it more sustainable. Provided these suggestions are followed, promotion of sustainable practices will likely prove an invaluable strategy for addressing the challenge of environmental degradation and its adverse impact on the food web.

As one can see, the biggest or urgent problem currently facing the food web is that of continuous environmental degradation. Predatory exploitation of natural resources, irresponsible use of edible products, and high degrees of food waste pose a serious threat to the sustainability of the food web in the long run. As a technologically developed species and a key stakeholder in the food web, humanity has the responsibility to address the problems that face it. Evidence-based and practical solutions are necessary to protect the integrity of the food web and ensure its stable and continuous functioning in the foreseeable future. Conservation efforts designed to preserve existing natural resources and protect them from predatory exploitation should be an inherent part of the solution. The promotion of sustainable practices on all levels, from individual to international, is also a workable solution that can deliver measurable results in a relatively short time span. If undertaken at a sufficiently large magnitude with a considerable number of actors, such measures will mitigate the negative effects of natural environment degradation on the food web.

Bieg, C., McCann, K. S., McMeans, B. C., Rooney, N., Holtgrieve, G. W., Lek, S., Bun, N. P., Krishna, B. K., & Fraser, E. (2018). Linking humans to food webs: A framework for the classification of global fisheries. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 16 (7), 412-420. Web.

Herforth, A., & Ahmed, S. (2015). The food environment, its effects on dietary consumption, and potential for measurement within agriculture-nutrition interventions. Food Security, 7 , 505-520. Web.

International Resource Panel. (2016). Food systems and natural resources. United Nations Environment Programme.

Janmaimool, P., & Chudech, S. (2020). Effect of domestic and global environmental events on environmental concern and environmental responsibility among university students. Sustainability, 12 (4), 1610-1629. Web.

Lindgren, E., Harris, F., Dangour, A. D., Gasparatos, A., Hiramatsu, M., Javadi, F., Loken, B., Murakami, T., Scheelbeek, P., & Haines, A. (2018). Sustainable food systems-A health perspective. Sustainability Science, 13, 1505-1517. Web.

Maynard, D. C., Vidigal, M. D., Farage, P., Zandonadi, P. P., Nakano, E. Y., & Botelho, R. B. (2020). Environmental, social and economic sustainability indicators applied to food services: A systematic review. Sustainability, 12 (2), 1804-1822. Web.

Muro-Torres, V. M., Amezcua, F., Soto- Jiménez, M., Balart, E. F., Serviere-Zaragoza, E., Green, F., & Rajnohova, J. (2020). Primary sources and food web structure of a tropical wetland with high density of mangrove forest. Water,12 (11), 3105-3122. Web.

Ritchie, H., & Roser, M. (2020). Environmental impacts of food production. Our World in Data. Web.

Surya, B., Syafri, S., Sahban, H., & Sakti, H. H. (2020). Natural resource conservation based on community economic empowerment: Perspectives on watershed management and slum settlements in Makassar City, South Sulawesi, Indonesia. Land, 9 (), 104-133. Web.

Tefft, J., Jonasova, M., Adjao, R., & Morgan, A. (2017). Food systems for an urbanizing world (PDF document). Web.

Trzcinski, M. K., Srivastava, D. S., Corbara, B., & Dézerald, O. (2016). The effects of food-web structure on ecosystem function exceeds those of precipitation. Journal of Animal Ecology, 85 (5), 1147-1160. Web.

Turner, C., Aggarwal, A., Walls, H., Herforth, A., Drewnowski, A., Coates, J., Kalamatianou, S., & Kadiyala, S. (2018). Concepts and critical perspectives for food environment research: A global framework with implications for action in low- and middle-income countries. Global Food Security, 18 (1), 93-101. Web.

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1. IvyPanda . "Food Web and Impact of Environmental Degradation." April 22, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/food-web-and-impact-of-environmental-degradation/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Food Web and Impact of Environmental Degradation." April 22, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/food-web-and-impact-of-environmental-degradation/.

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6.4: Food Chains and Food Webs

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Who eats whom?

Describing the flow of energy within an ecosystem essentially answers this question. To survive, one must eat. Why? To get energy. Food chains and webs describe the transfer of energy within an ecosystem, from one organism to another. In other words, they show who eats whom.

Food Chains and Food Webs

Food chains and food webs are diagrams that represent feeding relationships. Essentially, they show who eats whom. In this way, they model how energy and matter move through ecosystems .

Food Chains

A food chain represents a single pathway by which energy and matter flow through an ecosystem. An example is shown in Figure below . Food chains are generally simpler than what really happens in nature. Most organisms consume—and are consumed by—more than one species.

This food chain includes producers and consumers. How could you add decomposers to the food chain?

A food web represents multiple pathways through which energy and matter flow through an ecosystem. It includes many intersecting food chains. It demonstrates that most organisms eat, and are eaten, by more than one species. Examples are shown in Figures below and below .

Food Web. This food web consists of several different food chains. Which organisms are producers in all of the food chains included in the food web?

Examples of food webs.

• Food chains and food webs are diagrams that represent feeding relationships.
• Food chains and webs model how energy and matter move through ecosystems .
• What is a food chain?
• Describe the role of decomposers in food webs.
• Why is a food web more realistic than a food chain?
• Draw a terrestrial food chain that includes four feeding levels.

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Food webs essay.

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Food webs are depictions of the feeding relationships that exist among species within an ecosystem, indicating flows of energy and biomass between trophic levels. Although a food web is a more complex conception than a linear food chain, it remains a relatively static and binary depiction: species either interact or they don’t. Despite these limitations, food webs are useful conceptual tools, providing insights into the organization of communities and the interactions among different species within them.

Food webs are organized into trophic (or feeding) levels. Species are categorized as either producers or consumers. Producers or autotrophs , literally “self-feeders,” constitute the first trophic level-those species that synthesize their own food through processes of photosynthesis or chemosynthesis and includes most plants, algae, phytoplankton, and some species of bacteria. Photosynthetic species use carbon dioxide, water, and the light energy of the sun to produce sugar molecules as well as oxygen. Thus, these species are responsible for producing the relatively oxygen-rich atmosphere that exists on earth today. Chemosynthetic species produce carbohydrates via several different possible chemical pathways. Some use the chemical energy bound up in inorganic molecules (such as hydrogen sulfide), to produce carbohydrates from carbon (derived from carbon dioxide or methane), and oxygen.

Consumers, also termed heterotrophs, feed on other organisms, both living as well as dead. Those that eat the latter are decomposers or detritus eaters. All organisms eventually enter the detrital food web after they die and decompose or are consumed and their remains excreted. Herbivores, species that consume autotrophs, occupy the second trophic level. Carnivores are species that feed upon herbivores or other carnivores, with those that feed on herbivores occupying the third trophic level and those that feed on carnivores occupying higher trophic levels.

Food webs encompass a number of dynamic and interconnected food chains. A species may be an omnivore, consuming both producers and consumers, eat consumers from different trophic levels, and be preyed upon by a variety of species at different trophic levels, including fellow members of its own species. Some producers, such as Sundew and Venus Flytrap, supplement their primary production with the consumption of animals. There are also temporal dimensions to food webs. Predator-prey relationships may change both seasonally and through the life history of a species. For example, adult herring prey upon juvenile cod or eggs and may, in turn, be preyed upon by adult cod. In addition, some species, such as cod, cannibalize younger members of their own species.

Terrestrial and aquatic food webs are generally separated in space; however, some species facilitate cross-habitat fluxes of nutrients and detritus. Seabirds and some of the large vertebrate predators (humans, pinnepeds, polar bears) link marine and terrestrial food webs, transferring nutrients of marine origin to the land. Similarly, the migratory Pacific salmon grows to maturity in marine waters and returns to spawn and die in the freshwater environments where it was born, thereby connecting freshwater, marine, and terrestrial food webs. Salmon carcasses provide food for a wide variety of terrestrial animals, including bald eagles and bears, and are an important source of marine-origin nutrients in some freshwater streams.

The abundance of higher trophic level species is ultimately dependent on the productivity of autotrophs. A large proportion of the energy, as much as 90 percent, is lost in each trophic level transfer (as uneaten waste, feces, heat, consumer energy, and respiration, and so on). Because of this, there are limits on the absolute number of trophic levels found within an ecosystem. While the first and second laws of thermodynamics dictate that a substantial amount of bottom-up (nutrient driven) regulation of food webs exists, there is some evidence that top-down (predator dominated) control of food webs is or was important in some ecosystems.

Human Impact on Food Webs

 There are few, if any, food webs, on earth that have not been significantly affected, or even dominated, by human activities. Humans impact food webs in two general ways: creating deficits by extracting organisms from ecosystems; and by producing subsidies, concentrating and transporting wastes from one system to another. Agricultural production is significant in both respects. Plant-based agricultural systems replace natural systems, substituting monocultures for greater species diversity and extracting most of the primary production from the system for human consumption. The application of pesticides disturbs food webs, creating secondary outbreaks and resurgences of the targeted populations. On the other hand, industrial animal husbandry concentrates manure and other wastes, which if not managed adequately, may pollute aquatic systems, overfertilizing them and ultimately leading to eutrophic conditions.

Commercial and recreational fishing and hunting constitute significant impacts to some ecosystems. Removing predators from ecosystems can lead to trophic cascades, changing food web structure and dynamics, perhaps irreversibly. Pollutants, too, move through the trophic levels of food webs as animals eat and in turn are eaten by others through processes of bioaccumulation and biomagnification, causing problems for organisms at high trophic levels, and especially in northern latitudes, including birds of prey, marine mammals, and babies fed human breast milk. Global climate change may pose the greatest challenge to the stability of food webs, altering growing seasons, changing the geographical ranges of species, creating unpredictability in predator-prey relationships and ultimately threatening many species with extinction.

Bibliography:

• Kenneth T. Frank, Brian Petrie, Jae Choi, William C. Leggett, “Trophic Cascades in a Formerly Cod-Dominated Ecosystem,” Science (v.308/10 June, 2005);
• Henry F. Howe and Lynn Westley, Ecological Relationships of Plants and Animals (Oxford University Press, 1988);
• Daniel Pauly, Villy Christensen, Johanne Dalsgaard, Rainer Frose, and Francisco Torres Jr., “Fishing Down Marine Food Webs,” Science (v.279/6 February, 1998);
• Stuart Pimm, Food Webs (Chapman and Hall, 1982);
• Stuart L. Pimm, Food Webs, 2nd (University of Chicago Press, 2002);
• Gary Polis, Mary E. Power, Gary R. Huxel, eds., Food Webs at the Landscape Level (University of Chicago Press, 2004).
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As our planet’s climate warms, its most rapidly changing region is the Arctic Ocean and surrounding seas. Warming causes many changes, including the melting of sea ice and a decline in the amount of water that is covered by ice. These changes impact organisms at every level of the food web. In this article, we explain how changes in temperature affect the quality of food available for animals that live in the Arctic. We focus on changes near the bottom of the food web, involving tiny plants that dwell inside and below sea ice, and tiny animals that drift in the Arctic seas. Shifts in the abundance and quality of the smallest organisms in the Arctic Ocean affect larger organisms, such as polar bears and whales. Changes at the base of the food web must be considered if we want to protect the creatures that call the Arctic home.

How a Changing Climate Affects the Arctic

Since the start of the Industrial Revolution, over 200 years ago, our planet’s climate has changed drastically. Temperatures have soared at a faster rate than any other time in the past 65 million years! At the most northern and southern tips of our planet are the polar regions, the Arctic and the Antarctic. These are the coldest regions of Earth, where temperatures average well below 0°C. In winter, the top layer of the ocean freezes, creating what is called sea ice. Sea ice can range from paper thin ice, which melts very quickly, to incredibly thick ice that reaches heights of 3 m and can survive for many years. Sea ice has a cooling effect on the climate, acting as a refrigerator and keeping the rest of the planet at habitable temperatures.

As the temperature of our planet has increased, the environment has reacted in unique and alarming ways. In polar regions, large areas of sea ice are melting. The once snowy, white polar regions are being transformed into large areas of blue, open ocean. The warming of the polar regions has created a lot of questions that need answering. So, let us shed some light on how rising temperatures could affect the Arctic’s marine ecosystem.

Why Are Phytoplankton So Important?

At the base of the marine ecosystem, we find very small, but very important, plant-like creatures that drift in all seas. These creatures are called phytoplankton . Due to the microscopic size of phytoplankton, they are measured on the scale of microns (μm). One micron is 10,000 times smaller than a centimeter!

Phytoplankton typically live in what we call the euphotic zone , simply put, the depths where there is enough light for their photosynthesis . Through photosynthesis, they take in carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) from the atmosphere and produce oxygen, just like plants on land. Together, all the phytoplankton in the world’s oceans produce half of the Earth’s oxygen. This is an immense amount of oxygen considering that phytoplankton make up <1% of the world’s plant biomass [ 1 ]! In comparison, large plants like trees make up around 70% of global plant biomass yet produce about the same amount of oxygen as microscopic phytoplankton 1 . To demonstrate just how hardy phytoplankton are, it is worthwhile to note that they have been around a pretty long time. The first sign of phytoplankton was preserved in rocks from western Australia around 3.5 billion years ago!

Diatoms are the largest phytoplankton in our oceans ( Figure 1 ). They can be circular or elongated plants and are responsible for almost 20% of the Earth’s photosynthesis. Though diatoms primarily live in the open ocean, they also thrive in bizarre places. Large masses of diatoms have been found within the sea ice of both polar regions, dwelling inside salty, liquid, ice channels that have enough nutrients and light for them to perform photosynthesis. When diatoms are found in ice they are no longer classified as phytoplankton. As they are fixed in one place and do not drift we call them ice-dwelling algae or simply ice algae. They are often trapped in the ice as the top layer of the ocean starts to freeze. To find ice algae, ice cores roughly 10 cm in diameter are drilled out of the ice. Figure 2 shows the bottom of an ice core that has an abundance of algae inside.

• Figure 1 - A circular diatom (left) 2 and a phytoplankton community (right) 3 Scale bars are approximations of size.

• Figure 2 - An ice core showing sea ice algae (brown layer inside the ice), including diatoms, dwelling within the bottom 10 cm of the ice 4 .

What Eats Phytoplankton?

Zooplankton are the “middlemen” of the Arctic, performing the essential role of distributing nutrients to creatures throughout the food web as they are eaten by larger predators ( Figure 3 ). At some point in their lives, crabs, fish, and squid are all ocean drifters, and therefore termed zooplankton. Diatoms are a major food source for many zooplankton, because they contain many nutrients that give zooplankton the energy and raw materials to carry out activities, such as growing and reproducing.

• Figure 3 - The Arctic’s marine food web [ 2 ].
• Phytoplankton and ice algae are eaten by zooplankton, and in turn, zooplankton are eaten by polar cod, seabirds, and the bowhead whales. This shows how both phytoplankton and zooplankton are an incredibly important food supply to the rest of the Arctic’s ecosystem.

As sea ice melts in summer, nutrients stored in the ice are released back into the ocean. Light also becomes more available because there is less sea ice to reflect the light back into the atmosphere. These spring changes favor phytoplankton, zooplankton, and everything that consumes these bottom-of-the-food-web residents. Since zooplankton eat diatoms, the zooplankton themselves become nutritious for larger animals, such as fish, seabirds, and whales [ 2 ]. If zooplankton were not present, the rest of the ecosystem, including humans, would face a great loss of food. Humans in Inuit communities have relied on fish (zooplankton predators) and seals (fish predators) in the Arctic for over 10,000 years!

There is a dirty aspect of zooplankton that is particularly important—their poo. When zooplankton excrete their bodily waste, it becomes a food source for many other creatures. If it does not get eaten, it can end up in the seabed where it stores carbon for millions of years, slowing down the process of climate change, and keeping our planet cool.

One group of zooplankton found in marine ecosystems worldwide is particularly noteworthy. The copepods were given their name due to their “pods” (or feet), which are shaped like the oars used for rowing a boat. Their oar-like feet ( Figure 4 ) help to give these microscopic animals superhero powers! Copepods could win prizes for having some of the most outstanding features in the animal kingdom. Copepods are the strongest animal, the fastest jumpers, and may be the most numerous type of animal on the planet! The favorite food of many copepods is phytoplankton, which must live near the ocean surface where there is enough sunlight for photosynthesis. Feeding on phytoplankton is good, but not always safe; fish, birds, and other predators also hunt in the well-lit surface water, and they are waiting for copepods to make a mistake. Every day, copepods deal with the threat of predators by only entering the shallow water at night, when there is no light. After eating, copepods quickly migrate down to deeper, darker waters before shallow-water predators can see them. This daily migration of copepods and other zooplankton is the largest migration of biomass on the planet, a humongous daily movement spanning depth of tens, hundreds, or thousands of meters.

• Figure 4 - Calanus copepods sampled in February (left) and June (right).
• Though the lengths of the two copepods are relatively similar (4.4 and 4.8 mm), the February copepod is smaller overall than the June copepod, and the February animal, which is approaching the end of hibernation, also contains less fat in its oil sac (2019).

Some of the most abundant copepods in the Arctic Ocean are members of a group called Calanus . Packed with nutritious fats after intense spring and summer feeding, the Calanus copepods are so nutritious that some seabirds, fish, and whales travel massive distances across the oceans every year to gorge on them, typically in spring and summer. When most of the phytoplankton and zooplankton have been eaten, many of the birds, fish, and mammals leave the Arctic, to return the following year (but not all).

The Darkness

The dark months of winter may not be the best time to be an herbivore dependent solely on photosynthesising plants for survival! Some copepods become omnivores in the winter, while others stop eating altogether and enter hibernation in safe waters far below the sea ice. Intense feeding during peak phytoplankton abundance is crucial for building the necessary fat stores to hibernate during winter. Copepods can look very different in February (after a winter of hibernation and starvation) compared to June (after feeding). In the Arctic, waking up before the phytoplankton bloom can be beneficial to copepods. It allows them to feed on diatoms that hang and fall off the bottom the sea ice in spring. Following months of hibernation, an individual Calanus typically appears skinny, with limited fat reserves. It is only after feeding in spring and summer that a Calanus copepod can replenish its fat stores to their former glory ( Figure 4 ) [ 3 ]! After their return to algae-rich surface waters in the spring, many successful copepods reproduce during the spring ice algal bloom, allowing their offspring to hatch during the phytoplankton bloom that occurs below the ice a few months later [ 3 ]. This may be essential for their offspring to survive.

Researchers believe that if Calanus copepods failed to eat ice algae, the size of the copepod population could be drastically reduced. As sea ice declines due to climate change, this important food source for copepods is removed. Over long time scales, sea ice loss and other factors could decrease the availability of nutrients for the phytoplankton that are trying to grow below the ice [ 4 ]. This decrease of food for phytoplankton could mean that smaller phytoplankton would become more numerous than bigger, more nutritious diatoms. So, instead of having an abundance of high-quality food like large diatoms, copepods in a warmer, ice-free Arctic might be forced to eat less nutritious, smaller phytoplankton. Scientists are already seeing smaller-sized organisms in both the copepod and phytoplankton communities [ 5 ].

Projected Changes in the Arctic and What We Can Do to Help

As the Arctic region changes, it is likely that we could see food stocks, such as diatoms and other phytoplankton decline, while also becoming smaller and less nutritious. Changes in the lowest part of the food web can have immense consequences for larger animals. Extinction of species at the bottom of the food web can be terrible news for specialized predators that have evolved to eat them. Changes in the amount and type of plankton affect humans and animals in many direct and indirect ways, ranging from changes in air quality, to how we interact with the environment and its resources. With less phytoplankton in the Arctic, CO 2 concentrations in the atmosphere would increase causing our planet to continue warming.

As a society, we need to be more aware of the fact that our activities at home, work, or school can all affect ecosystems in places that are far away from us. Small changes, such as walking or cycling instead of driving can drastically help to limit CO 2 emissions. Research programs like the Changing Arctic Ocean 1 , based in the UK, are providing governments and the public with the most up-to-date information on biological changes in the Arctic. Two groups from Changing Arctic Ocean have collaborated on writing this manuscript, and we have additional resources available if you would like to learn more 5 , 6 .

Phytoplankton : ↑ A drifting plant that performs photosynthesis.

Photosynthesis : ↑ A process in which plants use the sun’s energy to convert carbon dioxide and water to oxygen and sugar.

Biomass : ↑ The total weight of an organism, or group of organisms in a specific region.

Diatom : ↑ A large type of phytoplankton that is an important food source for zooplankton.

Zooplankton : ↑ A drifting animal unable to swim against an ocean current.

Copepods : ↑ A type of zooplankton with oar shaped feet. A very abundant type of copepod is called Calanus .

Calanus : ↑ Some of the most abundant and nutritious copepods in the Arctic Ocean belong to this group.

Bloom : ↑ Rapid growth of algae or phytoplankton.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

[1] ↑ Bar-On, Y. M., Phillips, R., and Milo, R. 2018. The biomass distribution on Earth. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 115:6506–11. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1711842115

[2] ↑ Darnis, G., Robert, D., Pomerleau, C., Link, H., Archambault, P., Nelson, R. J., et al. 2012. Current state and trends in Canadian Arctic marine ecosystems: II. Heterotrophic food web, pelagic-benthic coupling, and biodiversity. Clim. Change 115:179–205. doi: 10.1007/s10584-012-0483-8

[3] ↑ Leu, E., Søreide, J. E., Hessen, D. O., Falk-Petersen, S., and Bergebe, J. 2011. Consequences of changing sea-ice cover for primary and secondary producers in the European Arctic shelf seas: timing, quantity, and quality. Prog. Oceanogr . 90:18–32. doi: 10.1016/j.pocean.2011.02.004

[4] ↑ Li, W. K. W., McLaughlin, F. A., Lovejoy, C., and Carmack, E. C. 2009. Smallest algae thrive as the Arctic Ocean freshens. Science 326:539. doi: 10.1126/science.1179798

[5] ↑ Falk-Petersen, S., Timofeev, S. F., Pavlov, V., and Sargent, J. R. 2007. “Climate variability and possible effects on Arctic food chains. The role of Calanus,” in Arctic-Alpine Ecosystems and People in a Changing Environment , eds J. B. Ørbæk, T. Tombre, R. Kallenborn, E. N. Hegseth, S. Falk-Petersen, and A. H. Hoel (Berlin: Springer). p. 147–66.

[1] ↑ https://www.changing-arctic-ocean.ac.uk/

[2] ↑ https://www.gercekbilim.com/inanilmaz-elektron-mikroskopu-fotograflari-2/diatom-sem/

[3] ↑ https://ethz.ch/de/news-und-veranstaltungen/eth-news/news/2019/05/weltweite-planktonverteilung.html

[4] ↑ http://www.antarctica.gov.au/science/climate-processes-and-change/oceans-and-marine-ice-in-the-southern-hemisphere/measuring-algae-in-the-fast-ice-research-blog/sea-ice-algae-project-blog/blog-8-first-ice-algae

[5] ↑ https://www.changing-arctic-ocean.ac.uk/project/eco-light/

[6] ↑ https://www.changing-arctic-ocean.ac.uk/project/chase/

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Food webs describe who eats whom in an ecological community. Made of interconnected food chains, food webs help us understand how changes to ecosystems — say, removing a top predator or adding nutrients — affect many different species, both directly and indirectly.

Phytoplankton and algae form the bases of aquatic food webs. They are eaten by primary consumers like zooplankton, small fish, and crustaceans. Primary consumers are in turn eaten by fish, small sharks, corals, and baleen whales. Top ocean predators include large sharks, billfish, dolphins, toothed whales, and large seals. Humans consume aquatic life from every section of this food web.

Phytoplankton is the base of several aquatic food webs. Image from the Alaska Fisheries Science Center MESA Project. (Image credit: NOAA)

Primary producers — including bacteria, phytoplankton , and algae — form the lowest trophic level , the base of the aquatic food web.  Primary producers synthesize their own energy without needing to eat. Many photosynthesize, using the sun’s energy to build carbohydrates. However, some primary producers can create energy without sunlight using chemosynthesis to metabolize chemicals released from hydrothermal vents, methane seeps, and other geological features.

Seraina Rioult-Pedotti, a 2022 Hollings scholar spent her summer looking at Pacific halibut ( Hippoglossus stenolepis)  and black rockfish ( Sebastes melanops ) diets at the Kachemak Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve in Homer, Alaska. These are two of the largest sport fisheries in Kachemak Bay, so they are both environmentally and economically important species. Understanding these top predators’ dietary preferences can help fisheries managers interpret how fishing activity affects entire ecosystems. 

Some zooplankton including copepods, rotifers, and larval stages of some fish and invertebrates are grazers and drift through the water grazing on phytoplankton. Larger animals, including some marine snails, fish, reptiles, and mammals, graze on algae. Filter feeders strain their food (plankton and detritus) directly from the water. Filter feeding animals include animals like bivalves, tube worms, sponges, and even large animals like baleen whales and manta rays.

Predators more actively feed on other animals. There are many kinds of predators that feed on many kinds of prey. Pursuit predators like sharks, box jellyfish, sunflower sea stars, and many fish like herring, cod, and tuna hunt for their prey. Ambush predators like mantis shrimp, some octopuses, some eels, and scorpionfish, capture their prey by hiding and suddenly attacking. Animals that have few or no predators of their own are called top predators. These include killer whales, leopard seals, large sharks, sunflower sea stars , marlin, and other highly migratory species .

Hi everyone, I'm Sarah Hensley! This summer I got the incredible opportunity to complete the internship portion of my Ernest F. Hollings Undergraduate Scholarship. I worked with an amazing group of scientists at the Southwest Fisheries Science Center in the Cetacean Health and Life History Program in La Jolla, California. My project was largely based around learning how the diet of common dolphins ( Delphinus spp ) has been changing over time, as well as how it has been influenced by sea surface temperature. 

But what happens when something dies without being eaten? The uneaten organisms and animal parts that are not consumed during feeding sink to the bottom, where they may be eaten by bottom-dwelling scavengers, like many crabs and lobsters. Organic material that remains is decomposed by bacteria and the resulting waste becomes nutrients usable by producers. When a whale dies, an entire ecosystem pops up to consume the sudden food source.

Opportunistic feeders

Many consumers are opportunistic feeders, meaning they may eat anywhere within the food web and may be a combination of any of the types described here. Sometimes they even eat each other.

Students across the nation in all 50 states looked up at their class projector screen this year and witnessed what some describe as “alien-like life decked out in discoware grooving across the dance floor!” They observed shimmery symmetrical diatoms, clear-bodied oozing shapes that morph before your very eyes, and a larval sea star that looks nothing like a star.

Ecosystem effects

Complex food webs support diverse ecosystems. If one type of prey becomes scarce, a predator might switch to consuming more of another species it eats. However, changes in one part of the food web may cause a trophic cascade that affects organisms across multiple trophic levels. For instance, removing a top predator may cause its prey to become more abundant, as fewer individuals are eaten. But with more prey around, the organisms that it eats may become scarcer. Seemingly simple changes can have complex effects, with direct and indirect interactions rippling throughout entire ecosystems.

Humans and aquatic food webs

Humans play an important role as one of the top predators in these food webs. It is our responsibility to ensure that our fisheries are sustainable and that we are not polluting the ocean with toxins that bioaccumulate in food webs.

EDUCATION CONNECTION

Education plays an important role in the health of our aquatic food webs. Whether students live inland or on the coasts, their actions affect the health of one of our major food sources. This collection contains a variety of multimedia, lesson plans, data, activities, and information to help students better understand the interconnectedness of food webs and the role of humans in that web.

Food Chain and Food Web

• Producers - Plants are producers. This is because they produce energy for the ecosystem. They do this because they absorb energy from sunlight through photosynthesis . They also need water and nutrients from the soil, but plants are the only place where new energy is made.
• Consumers - Animals are consumers. This is because they don't produce energy, they just use it up. Animals that eat plants are called primary consumers or herbivores. Animals that eat other animals are called secondary consumers or carnivores. If a carnivore eats another carnivore, it is called a tertiary consumer. Some animals play both roles, eating both plants and animals. They are called omnivores.
• Decomposers - Decomposers eat decaying matter (like dead plants and animals). They help put nutrients back into the soil for plants to eat. Examples of decomposers are worms, bacteria, and fungi.
• grass = producer
• zebra = primary consumer
• lion = secondary consumer

• Level 1: Plants (producers)
• Level 2: Animals that eat plants or herbivores (primary consumers)
• Level 3: Animals that eat herbivores (secondary consumers, carnivores)
• Level 4: Animals that eat carnivores (tertiary consumers, carnivores)
• Level 5: Animals at the top of the food chain are called apex predators. Nothing eats these animals.
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Essays on Food Web

• Biology Article
• Overview of Food Chain

An Overview of Food Chain

Table of Contents

• What is a food chain
• Types of food chain
• Frequently Asked Questions

Food Chain: Introduction

A food chain explains which organism eats another organism in the environment. The food chain is a linear sequence of organisms where nutrients and energy is transferred from one organism to the other. This occurs when one organism consumes another organism. It begins with the producer organism, follows the chain and ends with the decomposer organism. After understanding the food chain, we realise how one organism is dependent upon another organism for survival.

Now, let’s look at the other aspects of a food chain, to get a better understanding.

What is a Food Chain?

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.

The food chain also explains the feeding pattern or relationship between living organisms. Trophic level refers to the sequential stages in a food chain, starting with producers at the bottom, followed by primary, secondary and tertiary consumers. Every level in a food chain is known as a trophic level.

The food chain consists of four major parts, namely:

• The Sun: The sun is the initial source of energy, which provides energy for everything on the planet.
• Producers: The producers in a food chain include all autotrophs such as phytoplankton, cyanobacteria, algae, and green plants. This is the first stage in a food chain. The producers make up the first level of a food chain. The producers utilise the energy from the sun to make food. Producers are also known as autotrophs as they make their own food. Producers are any plant or other organisms that produce their own nutrients through photosynthesis.
• Consumers: Consumers are all organisms that are dependent on plants or other organisms for food. This is the largest part of a food web, as it contains almost all living organisms. It includes herbivores which are animals that eat plants, carnivores which are animals that eat other animals, parasites that live on other organisms by harming them and lastly the scavengers, which are animals that eat dead animals’ carcasses.

Here, herbivores are known as primary consumers and carnivores are secondary consumers. The second trophic level includes organisms that eat producers. Therefore, primary consumers or herbivores are organisms in the second trophic level.

• Decomposers: Decomposers are organisms that get energy from dead or waste organic material. This is the last stage in a food chain. Decomposers are an integral part of a food chain, as they convert organic waste materials into inorganic materials, which enriches the soil or land with nutrients.

Decomposers complete a life cycle. They help in recycling the nutrients as they provide nutrients to soil or oceans, that can be utilised by autotrophs or producers. Thus, starting a whole new food chain.

Several interconnected food chains form a food web. A food web is similar to a food chain but the food web is comparatively larger than a food chain. Occasionally, a single organism is consumed by many predators or it consumes several other organisms. Due to this, many trophic levels get interconnected. The food chain fails to showcase the flow of energy in the right way. But, the food web is able to show the proper representation of energy flow, as it displays the interactions between different organisms.

When there are more cross-interactions between different food chains, the food web gets more complex. This complexity in a food web leads to a more sustainable ecosystem.

Types of Food Chain

There are two types of food chains, namely the detritus food chain and the grazing food chain. Let’s look at them more closely:

• Detritus food chain: The detritus food chain includes different species of organisms and plants like algae, bacteria, fungi, protozoa, mites, insects, worms and so on. The detritus food chain begins with dead organic material. The food energy passes into decomposers and detritivores, which are further eaten by smaller organisms like carnivores. Carnivores, like maggots, become a meal for bigger carnivores like frogs, snakes and so on. Primary consumers like fungi, bacteria, protozoans, and so on are detritivores which feed on detritus.
• Grazing food chain: The grazing food chain is a type of food chain that starts with green plants, passes through herbivores and then to carnivores. In a grazing food chain, energy in the lowest trophic level is acquired from photosynthesis.

In this type of food chain, the first energy transfer is from plants to herbivores. This type of food chain depends on the flow of energy from autotrophs to herbivores. As autotrophs are the base for all ecosystems on Earth, the majority of ecosystems in the environment follow this kind of food chain.

Understanding food chains is vital, as they explain the intimate relationships in an ecosystem. A food chain shows us how every living organism is dependent on other organisms for survival. The food chain explains the path of energy flow inside an ecosystem.

Frequently Asked Questions on Food Chain

What are the first organisms in a food chain, what is the difference between the food chain and the food web.

A food chain follows a single path, where animals discover food. But a food web shows different paths, where plants and animals are connected. A food web comprises several food chains.

In a food chain, an organism eats a single item, whereas in a food web an organism consumes multiple items. In a food chain, there is a singular path for energy flow and in a food web, there are different paths for energy flow.

What role do humans play in a food chain?

What are animals called in a food chain, what do food chains end with.

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Food Essay for Students and Children

500+ words essay on food.

Food is the basic human need to stay alive. Moreover, it is the need of every living organism . Therefore it is important that we should not waste food. Our world consists of different types of cultures. These cultures have varieties of dishes of food in them.

Thus, all the dishes have different taste. Furthermore, our nature provides us a variety of food. From fruits to vegetables, from Dairy food to seafood everything is available. Different countries have their own specialty of dishes. Therefore some of them are below:

World-famous Cuisines

Italian Cuisines – Italian cuisines is one of the most popular cuisines around the world. Moreover, it is widely available in our India too. Dishes like pizza, pasta, and lasagna own a special place in the hearts’ of people.

Furthermore, restaurants like Dominos and Pizza hut are available all over the country. People of every age love the taste of these Italian dishes. Also, Italian dishes are famous for their’ cheese filling. Every dish is load with cheese. Which enhances the taste of these Italian dishes.

Indian cuisine – Indian cuisine is always filled with a lot of herbs and spices. Furthermore, the specialty of Indian dishes is, it is always filled with curries. Whether veg or non-veg the dishes are in curry form. Moreover, Indian cuisine has so many varieties of food that has further branches. The Branch consists of Mughal cuisine which is mostly of non-vegetarian dishes. Also, almost every Indian love Muglia dishes.

Chinese Cuisine – Chinese cuisine in India is also very popular. There are many Chinese theme-based restaurants here. Moreover, in these restaurants Chinese are preferable chefs because they can only give the perfect Chinese blend. Chinese cuisines have a wide variety of dishes. Some of them are Chinese noodles, fried rice, Dumplings, etc. Dumplings have a different name here. They go by the name of momos in India and people love the taste of it.

These were some of the favorites of Indian people. Moreover, these are in almost every part of the city. You can find it anywhere, whether be it in 5-star restaurants or at the side of the street as street foods.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Importance of Food in Our Life

We cannot deny the importance of food in our lives. As it is the basic need to survive. Yet some people waste not thinking that there are still some people that do not get any of it. We should always be careful while taking a meal on our plates.

In other words, we should take only that much that our stomach can allow. Or else there will be wasting of food . In India there are many people living in slums, they do not have proper shelter. Moreover, they are not able to have even a one-time meal. They starve for days and are always in a state of sickness.

Many children are there on roads who are laboring to get a daily meal. After seeing conditions like these people should not dare to waste food. Moreover, we should always provide food to the needy ones as much as we can.

Q1. Name any two different types of cuisines available in India.

A1. The two different types of cuisines available in India are Italian and Chinese cuisine. These are famous apart from Indian cuisine.

Q2. How can we not waste food?

A2. You cannot waste food by taking only a sufficient amount of it. Moreover, people should seal pack the leftover food and give it to the beggars. So that they can at least stay healthy and not starve.

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