What Is the Difference Between Food Chains and Food Webs?

There are many terminologies and fields related to food. And one such is food chains and the food web. However, people generally get confused between the two since they are not aware of the difference between what is a food chain and what is a food web.

Both being a part of the ecosystem creates confusion, and in this article, we will be focusing on the difference between a food chain and a food web.

Both are a part of an ecosystem where the flow of energy takes place.

Segments of An Ecosystem:

Sun

The sun is the primary source of energy on Earth and is responsible for the maintenance of the ecosystem. Sun provides energy for all biological functions on earth.

Producers

The food chain begins with the producers which are responsible for producing food with the help of energy released by the Sun generally by performing photosynthesis. All green plants from the producer segment, and are also called as primary level. They are also referred to as autotrops.

Consumers

Consumers are the segment that is dependent upon producers or other living organisms for their food. Consumers from secondary and tertiary levels. They are the largest segment of an ecosystem.

Decomposers

These are the tiny microbes that generate energy from dead decaying matter and are considered to be the final level of the food chain.

How Does Energy Flow in An Ecosystem?

• An ecosystem is generally made up of all living creatures including the source of energy – the Sun. 
• The energy that circulates between various trophic levels of organisms in an ecosystem is considered to be calorific flow or energy flow.
• To understand the energy flow let’s move to an example where the sun is providing 100% of its energy in an ecosystem.
• Out of this 100% energy, plants can absorb hardly one to two percent of the energy which is then converted to chemical energy.
• Further many herbivorous animals who are dependent upon plants consume this chemical energy and are now available for secondary consumers as the primary source of energy. 
• This process moves in a circle and hence energy is being transferred from primary to secondary and secondary to tertiary animals.
• At the end of the circle the decomposers release back the energy into the environment and the energy remains constant.

At different tropical levels, a large amount of energy is wasted and it is assumed that only 10% of the energy is being able to pass onto the next tropical level; this rule is known as the 10% law.

What Is a Food Chain?

Talking about the food chain, it’s simply a hierarchy between how a smaller or a weaker animal or considered as a producer is being eaten by consumers.

Consumer here simply means animals that eat or depend upon other organisms or living creatures to survive such as lions. There is a linear flow of energy and nutrients from one organism to another.

Another basic definition of a producer can be someone independent of another organism for survival such as plants.

• The food chain simply refers to the process where plants make their food which is then consumed by a deer and further a deer is consumed by a lion. This is a basic food chain.
• In this, various organisms are dependent upon each other which simply transfers one form of energy to another from producers to consumers. 
• However, there is no such ending to the food chain since the top consumers for say lions when they die are being eaten by tiny organisms, which are generally called decomposers.
• In this way, the food chain begins from the beginning. Hence it is a never-ending process.
• It changes from environment to environment. For saying the food chain found in an aquarium or a pond is very different from that found in a sea or a forest. 
• If you create a hierarchy tree of the food chain you will find that producers always are at the bottom-most place and the predators including lions, tigers, cheetahs, and leopards always occupy the top most position.
• The same pattern is followed in aquatic animals: a smaller fish is eaten by a bigger fish and that bigger fish is the food of another fish that is bigger than the previous one. 

Thus, we can conclude that in a food chain plant produces energy which is then transferred to any herbivorous animal and that herbivorous animal is then eaten by a carnivorous or omnivorous animal and at each step, the energy is being transferred.

Types of The Food Chain

Predator Food Chain

The Predator food chain mainly consists of four tropical levels made up of autotrophs, herbivorous, carnivorous, and omnivorous at four levels respectively.

The key feature of the Predator food chain is it ends at the biggest animal in the tropical level.

Parasitic Food Chain

In the parasitic food chain, it ends at the smallest organism in the ecosystem that is the parasites. That means when animals eat each other at different tropical levels, ultimately the last animal is the parasite which feeds upon the dead animal of the second highest animal in the food chain.

For example, the plant that produces food is then eaten by an elephant when an elephant dies it’s eaten by bugs and worms, and when bugs and worms die they are then eaten by microbial parasites.

Saprophytic Food Chain:

We can consider it as a reverse food chain where the saprophytes or the parasite including fungi and algae feed on dead and decayed animals or plants which act as a host to these parasitic animals

What Is a Food Web?

The main difference between a food chain and a food web is that the food web doesn’t follow a singular path like that of a food chain. Instead, in a food web the flow of energy is interconnected between various organisms.

• The food web works on the simple phenomena of the consumer-resource system.
• Various organisms can eat various other organisms.
• For example in a desert cacti prepare their food which can be further eaten by insects or lizards or rodents. Now, these organisms can be food for crabs, scorpions, and other bigger lizards.
• The feature is that a single organism can be present at various tropical levels, making a complex food web.
• With the help of the food web, we can easily understand the interrelations and interconnection between the various organisms in an ecosystem.

Difference Between Food Chain and Food Web:

There is a basic difference between the food chain and the food web in the terms of transfer of energy from the lower levels of organisms to higher levels of organisms. 

• In a food chain, the energy transfer follows a linear path while in a food web it’s a mesh or a network of animals feeding upon each other.
• Generally, in the food chain, the higher level of organism feeds on a certain specific organism of lower levels while this is not in the case of the food web. Instead in a food web, an organism of higher levels has access to more animals at lower levels.
• It generally does not affect the adaptability of the organism while the food web improves the adaptability of the organism
• The food chain can be at most 4 to 6 levels of different species while in a food web the levels may vary explicitly.
• The major disadvantage in a food chain is that extension of a certain organism can disrupt the entire food chain while this can be an advantage in the case of a food web since the options are in abundance.
• The Food web only describes the eating pattern of producers and consumers while the food chain ends at decomposers which are not a part of the food web.
• While food chains only display one direction or chain at a time, food webs display the relationship between several primary, secondary, and tertiary consumers.

Similarities Between Food Chain and Food Web:

• Bought both the food chain and food web come prizes of living organisms feeding upon each other to maintain the biological balance of nature and support the growth and reproduction of the organism.
• In general what food chain and food web starts with plants and ends with decomposers however the path of transfer of energy between the two may be linear or in an interconnected form.
• Various levels of an organism in a food chain or the food web are termed tropical levels which generally consist of similar animals who eat and are being eaten by a certain group of animals.

FAQs Related to The Food Chain and Food Web

How Can a Food Chain Impact a Food Web?

When looking into a broader picture we can easily find that various food chains are interconnected together to form a food web. Hence disturbance in the food chain can also cause disturbance in the food web.

Which Is More Stable: A Food Chain or A Food Web?

The transfer of energy in a food web is complex and can take various paths, hence making it a never-ending process. On the other hand in a food chain if a single tropical level is missing the energy cannot be further transferred making it a less stable one.

On What Factors Food Web Depends?

The Food web generally depends on various biological factors such as latitude temperature and several species.

Which Is the Largest Part of The Food Web?

Consumers make the largest part of the food web since it contains most of the living organisms.

Do Decomposers Find a Place in The Food Web?

The absence of decomposers, quaternary consumers, and detritivorous in a food web differentiates between the food chain and the food web.

Conclusion

The food chain works on the principle of who eats whom and a complex food chain is termed a food web. That is the various interconnected food chains with multiple tropical levels forms of the food web.

The organism of various classes such as producers, consumers or primary secondary and tertiary organisms phones either a food chain or a food web.

When the animal in the highest level has only a few options in this lower level as their food they form a food chain while a single animal which can be present on multiple tropical levels forms the food web.

However, the food web is considered to be more important than a food chain and is also more stable.