What is the food web theory?
Food web theory is a dynamic map of predator prey interactions, defined by the flow of energy between different trophic levels. Food webs can also be used to investigate indirect causes of decline through a bottom up approach and recognize relationships between species in an ecosystem.
What is a community in a food web?
Community food webs describe the feeding relationships, or trophic interactions, between the species of an ecological community. The dynamics of food webs are influenced by indirect interactions, in which changes in the level of a population in one part of the food web may have indirect effects throughout the web.
Why is studying food webs important?
Food web is an important conceptual tool for illustrating the feeding relationships among species within a community, revealing species interactions and community structure, and understanding the dynamics of energy transfer in an ecosystem.
What would be the best form of scientific communication to demonstrate a food chain that occurs in nature?
Food webs describe the trophic links between producers and consumers, and consumers and their predators, and are the most widely recognized representation of the interactions between species in an ecosystem1,2.
How is a community level interaction related to food webs?
Food webs include both strong and weak interactions between species, and these differences in interaction strength influence the organization of communities. Consequently, the interaction between Pisaster and Mytilus supports the structure and species diversity of these communities.
Why is the knowledge of food web important in establishing a pest management strategy?
Food webs can help insect pest management because they clarify the functional inter- actions between populations. In some, but not many, cases, agricultural data on pests and their biological control species have been organized into food webs (Pierce et al. predictive models of pest population dynamics.
Why is a food web a better description of feeding relationships in a community than a food chain?
The food web provides a better model of an ecosystem because the food web is a model between MANY different consumers and producers in an ecosystem. The food chain would break down and if the food chain breaks down all the animals would die, and the ecosystem will no longer exist.
What are food chains and food webs give examples and discuss their significance?
A food chain only follows just one path as animals find food. eg: A hawk eats a snake, which has eaten a frog, which has eaten a grasshopper, which has eaten grass. A food web shows the many different paths plants and animals are connected. eg: A hawk might also eat a mouse, a squirrel, a frog or some other animal.