Definition · Plain-language
Food web
A food web is a network of overlapping food chains that shows the many feeding relationships between organisms in an ecosystem.
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A network of food chains
A food chain follows one path of energy through an ecosystem, but real ecosystems are far more tangled. Most animals eat several different foods, and most are eaten by several different predators. When you draw all these feeding links together, the separate chains cross and join to form a food web. A fox, for example, might eat rabbits, mice and birds, while a rabbit might be eaten by a fox, a buzzard or a stoat. A food web captures all of these connections at once, giving a more complete view than any single chain.
Why food webs matter
Food webs show how closely the living things in an ecosystem depend on one another. Because the strands are interconnected, a change to one species can ripple through the whole web. If a predator is removed, the animals it ate may increase and overgraze their own food; if a plant disappears, every animal that relied on it is affected. Studying food webs helps ecologists predict these knock-on effects and understand why biodiversity — a rich variety of species — tends to make an ecosystem more stable and resilient.
Food web versus food chain
A food chain and a food web describe the same feeding relationships but at different scales. A food chain is a single, linear pathway: one organism eaten by the next in a straight line. A food web is the bigger picture, made of many food chains woven together to show all the feeding links in a community. The food chain is simpler and easier to follow; the food web is more realistic, because in nature almost no organism relies on just one source of food.
Key facts
At a glance
- Definition: a network of many interconnected food chains
- Built from: overlapping food chains in the same ecosystem
- Why a web: most animals eat, and are eaten by, several species
- Compared with: a food chain shows one path; a web shows many
- Shows: how species depend on one another
- Stability: more biodiversity tends to make a web more resilient
Common misconceptions
What people often get wrong
Often heard: A food web and a food chain are the same thing.
Actually: They differ in scale. A food chain is a single straight-line feeding pathway, while a food web is many food chains joined together, showing all the feeding links in an ecosystem. The web is the fuller, more realistic picture.
Often heard: Removing one species from a food web only affects that species.
Actually: Because the strands are interconnected, removing one species can affect many others. Its predators lose food and the things it ate may increase. Changes ripple through the whole web, which is why ecosystems are so interdependent.
Often heard: Each animal in a food web eats only one type of food.
Actually: Most animals eat several different foods and are eaten by several predators — that is exactly why food chains overlap to form a web. An animal limited to a single food is the exception, not the rule.
Going deeper
