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A food web model is a network of food chains. Each food chain starts with a primary producer or autotroph, an organism, such as an alga or a plant, which is able to manufacture its own food. Next in the chain is an organism that feeds on the primary producer, and the chain continues in this way as a string of successive predators.
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.
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 ...
A diagram that sets out the intricate network of intersecting and overlapping food chains for an ecosystem is called its food web. [6] Decomposers are often left off food webs, but if included, they mark the end of a food chain. [6] Thus food chains start with primary producers and end with decay and decomposers.
In aquatic ecosystems, single-celled photosynthetic organisms like cyanobacteria and diatoms are the main producers. Through the process of photosynthesis, they transform sunlight into chemical energy and create organic matter, which is the foundation of the food chain.
The numbered steps it takes for the initial source of energy starting from the bottom to reach the top of the food web is called the food chain length. [33] While food chain lengths can fluctuate, aquatic ecosystems start with primary producers that are consumed by primary consumers which are consumed by secondary consumers, and those in turn ...
The aquatic microbial loop is a marine trophic pathway which incorporates dissolved organic carbon into the food chain.. The microbial loop describes a trophic pathway where, in aquatic systems, dissolved organic carbon (DOC) is returned to higher trophic levels via its incorporation into bacterial biomass, and then coupled with the classic food chain formed by phytoplankton-zooplankton-nekton.
This process allows for new algal growth, which in turn generates sustenance for other organisms along the food chain. Indeed, without saprobe species, such as protists, fungi, and bacteria, life would cease to exist as all organic carbon became "tied up" in dead organisms.