Q.What is food chain ?

A food chain is a linear feeding sequence, starting with a producer, through which food and energy pass from one organism to the next as each is eaten by the one above it.

In every ecosystem, energy that is originally fixed by green plants (producers) through photosynthesis is passed on to other organisms through repeated cycles of eating and being eaten. This straight-line, ordered sequence of organisms -- with each organism occupying a specific feeding/trophic level -- is called a food chain. It typically begins with a producer (a green plant, which converts solar energy into chemical/food energy), continues through a primary consumer (herbivore, which eats the plant), then to a secondary consumer (a small carnivore that eats the herbivore), and may continue to a tertiary consumer (a larger carnivore/top predator). A classic grassland example is: grass (producer) -> grasshopper (primary consumer/herbivore) -> frog (secondary consumer) -> snake (tertiary consumer) -> hawk (top/quaternary consumer). At every transfer along the chain, only a fraction of the energy (classica …