THE FOOD WEB

Food chains only show one possible source of food for the animal. A better way of seeing what an animal eats is to construct a food web. A food web describes all the relationships of one animal or plant to the other members of the community. Most plants and animals are members of many different food chains. The animal eats a variety of different foods, but it is being preyed on by a number of predators. A field will have many food chains. These might include:

clover ---> worm ----> robin ---> mosquitoes

clover ---> worm ----> raccoon

clover ---> groundhog ---> mosquitoes

alder ----> white-tailed deer ---> mosquitoes

The food web diagram allows us to trace quickly these different food chains and to see how each chain is related to all the other food chains. The above four food chains can be drawn as a single food web. The resulting food web shows at a glance how the plants and animals are interrelated.

Add caption