Q.What is a food web, and how does it differ structurally from a single food chain?

Step 1. A food chain is a single, straight-line sequence in which each organism feeds only on the one immediately before it, typically involving four or five trophic levels. Step 2. A food web forms when several such food chains interconnect and overlap within the same community, most often because many consumers -- especially omnivores -- feed on more than one kind of prey and are themselves preyed upon by more than one predator, creating cross-links between what would otherwise be separate chains. Step 3. Structurally, then, a food chain is a single unbranched line, whereas a food web is a branching, interconnected network built from many such lines sharing organisms between them; a food web is also the mor …

• Describing a food web as merely 'a longer food chain' rather than recognising it as multiple INTERCONNECTED chains. …