AP BIOLOGY

Detailed explanation-1: -Each living thing in an ecosystem is part of multiple food chains. Each food chain is one possible path that energy and nutrients may take as they move through the ecosystem. All of the interconnected and overlapping food chains in an ecosystem make up a food web.

Detailed explanation-2: -Food chains intertwine locally into a food web because most organisms consume more than one type of animal or plant. Plants, which convert solar energy to food by photosynthesis, are the primary food source. In a predator chain, a plant-eating animal is eaten by a flesh-eating animal.

Detailed explanation-3: -There are two types of food chains: the grazing food chain, beginning with autotrophs, and the detrital food chain, beginning with dead organic matter (Smith & Smith 2009).

Detailed explanation-4: -Each level or link in a food chain or a food web is called a) a trophic level. A trophic level is the position that an organism occupies within the food chain or web of that particular ecosystem. Trophic levels include producers, primary consumers, secondary consumers, tertiary consumers, and decomposers.