Food Chain and Food Web

In the ecosystem there are two types of organism’s heterotrophs and autotrophs.

Autotrophs are those that produce their own food. For Example plants, algae and phytoplankton. While heterotrophs are those that depend on the autotrophs for their food requirements like humans and animals. Food Chain simply put is a sequence of producer, primary consumer, secondary consumer and so on. In this chain the organisms are related and dependent on each other. Interlinking of the food chains is known as the food web. In a food web the producer or any other organisms have multiple options for consumption. It is basically a representation of the eating habits or relationships of different organisms in the ecosystem. It also helps in establishing the interaction of species in the ecosystem and is essential for tracing the transfer of energy across various levels.

Some basic terms related to the food chain 

• Trophic level – It is defined as the position of the organism in the food chain or food web
• It is the number of organisms in the food chain
• The trophic word comes of Greek origin referring to food or nourishment
• The concept of the trophic level was given by Raymond Lindeman
• Producer – The producers are mainly autotrophs Examples of producers are plants but they can be phytoplankton when we consider the chain in the ocean
• They are the starting point of a food chain
• They produce food by the process of photosynthesis which requires the sun as the main energy source or by the process of chemosynthesis which requires the chemical energy source
• The main function of the producer is the conversion of the inorganic form to the organic form that is further consumed by the consumer at the higher level of the food chain
• Consumers- Consumers are the heterotrophs Consumers can be primary, secondary or tertiary consumers
• The primary consumers are the herbivores as they consume plants or phytoplankton while the second consumers are carnivores or omnivores
• Decomposers- They are also known as detritivores who decompose dead remains of plants and animals
• Examples of detritivores are bacteria and fungi

Food chain

The food chain is a sequence of organisms and how they eat and are eaten up in the process. The various stages of the food chain are known as trophic levels. On moving from one trophic level to the other level there is a loss of energy that is governed by the 10% law of energy. At this level, there is an energy loss of 10% at every trophic level.

The food chain starts with producers, then primary consumers, secondary consumers and finally detritivores.

Importance of Food chain

• The food chain is a significant part of the ecosystem
• It helps us identify the ecological balance of the area
• Extinction and reduction of the number of animal or plant species can be figured out with the help of the food chain
• In the food chain, every organism of the food chain plays a specific role and the removal of any of them will hamper the balance
• Like decomposers play an important role in reducing the dead matter on the earth
• They help in cleansing the earth

Examples of Some basic food chain

Grass →Grasshopper →Snake →Eagle 

In this chain, the producer is the grass at trophic level -1

Grasshopper is the primary consumer at trophic level-2

Snake is the secondary consumer at the trophic level-3

Eagle is the tertiary consumer at the trophic level -4

Phytoplankton Small fish → Big fish 

Similarly, in this case, phytoplankton is the producer, small fish the primary consumer and big fish the secondary consumer.

Food Web 

By the word web, the first thing that comes to our mind is interlinking or something which is entangled. So food web is the process of Interlinking different food chains or we can say that the Food Web is a series of linked food chains. The Food web is interlinked because there can be more than one consumer if the given producer and hence the connection occurs.

For example, in the below food chain the deer can be eaten by a tiger or grass can be eaten by a grasshopper which results in a web.

Grass → Deer → Lion→ Death – decomposed by bacteria and fungi

Difference between food chain and food web 

• The food chain is a linear sequence of organisms while the food web is interlinked
• In a food chain if a given organism is missing or extinct it affects the entire chain while in the food web the organism has a lot of alternatives
• The food chain is a single chain with a straight flow of energy while the food web is multiple food chains with no specific direction of energy flow
• Food chains that are too separate food chains increase instability while more the complex and interlinked a food web is more is the more stability
• The number of trophic levels in the food chain is fixed to around 4-6 due to the limiting energy factor but the food web contains multiple trophic levels
• The food chain has two types of grazing and detritivores food chain while the food web doesn’t have any type
• In the food web, the consumers depend on a single producer while in a food web there are multiple producers

Conclusion

The food chain is a crucial part of the ecosystem for maintaining a healthy and balanced ecosystem. The ecosystem balance is essential for humans because humans are somewhere part of this Chain.