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Food chain

Food chains, also called food webs, describe the eating relationships between species within an ecosystem or a particular living place. Many types of food chains or webs are applicable depending on habitat or environmental factors.

Organisms are connected to the organisms they consume by lines representing the direction of organism or energy transfer. It also shows how the energy from the producer is given to the consumer. Typically a food chain or food web refers to a graph where only connections are recorded, and a food network or ecosystem network refers to a network where the connections are given weights representing the quantity of nutrients or energy being transferred.

Sometimes, on a food chain, each animal is separated with an arrow. If it is pointing right, it means "is eaten by" or "is consumed by".

Every single food chain known to Man begins with a type of autotroph, whether it be a plant or some kind of unicellular organism.

This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA