How is a food web different from a food chain?
Food Chains A food chain shows how each plant and animal gets food in a predator-prey relationship. All food chains start with producers such as plants and algae. Producers produce all the food in the food chain by harnessing the sunlight that shines on them to turn carbon dioxide, water and soil nutrients into sugars. Herbivores feed on these nutrients and are themselves fed on by carnivores. So, if in a particular area, grasshoppers eat grass, rats eat some of those grasshoppers, snakes eat some of those rats and hawks eat some of those snakes, that chain of predation is a food chain. Complexity Eating and being eaten are more complicated than food chains would have us believe. Many animals eat more than one food, and in turn can be eaten by more than one predator. To make things more complicated, there are omnivores such as crows and humans that eat plants and animals. These omnivores occupy multiple levels in a food chain. Food Webs A food web shows these complex relationships betw
