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A freshwater aquatic food web. The blue arrows show a complete food chain (algae → daphnia → gizzard shad → largemouth bass → great blue heron). A food web is the natural interconnection of food chains and a graphical representation of what-eats-what in an ecological community.
A food pyramid and a corresponding food web, demonstrating some of the simpler patterns in a food web. A graphic representation of energy transfer between trophic layers in an ecosystem. Energy flow is the flow of energy through living things within an ecosystem . [ 1 ]
An example of a topological food web (image courtesy of USDA) [1]. The soil food web is the community of organisms living all or part of their lives in the soil. It describes a complex living system in the soil and how it interacts with the environment, plants, and animals.
Food chain in a Swedish lake. Osprey feed on northern pike, which in turn feed on perch which eat bleak which eat crustaceans.. A food chain is a linear network of links in a food web, often starting with an autotroph (such as grass or algae), also called a producer, and typically ending at an apex predator (such as grizzly bears or killer whales), detritivore (such as earthworms and woodlice ...
The exception to this generalization is when portions of a food web are supported by inputs of resources from outside the local community. In small, forested streams, for example, the volume of higher levels is greater than could be supported by the local primary production. Energy usually enters ecosystems from the Sun.
These organisms play a crucial role in benthic ecosystems, forming essential food chains and participating in the nitrogen cycle. [8] Detritivores and decomposers that reside in the desert live in burrows underground to avoid the hot surface since underground conditions provide favorable living conditions for them.
Within a food web, a food chain is a succession of organisms that eat other organisms and may, in turn, be eaten themselves. The trophic level of an organism is the number of steps it is from the start of the chain. A food web starts at trophic level 1 with primary producers such as plants, can move to herbivores at level 2, carnivores at level ...
In order to cope with extreme conditions, desert endotherms have adapted through the means of avoidance, relaxation of homeostasis, and specializations. Nocturnal desert rodents, like the kangaroo rat, will spend the daytime in cool burrows deep underground, and emerge at night to seek food. Birds are much more mobile than ground-dwelling ...