Each food chain is a descriptive diagram including a series of arrows, ... portrayed as links in a food web (Paine 1980). Energy flow webs quantify energy flow from one species to another.

Think of a food web as a "who eats whom" diagram showing an ecosystem's complex feeding relationships. Knowing the interconnectedness of organisms in energy transfer within an ecosystem is vital ...

The feeding sequence, showing the energy flow from producers to consumers, is called a food chain. Each step is called a trophic level: producers are on the first trophic level 1, primary ...