AP BIOLOGY

Detailed explanation-1: -A food web is all of the food chains in an ecosystem. Each organism in an ecosystem occupies a specific trophic level or position in the food chain or web. Producers, who make their own food using photosynthesis or chemosynthesis, make up the bottom of the trophic pyramid.

Detailed explanation-2: -All of the interconnected and overlapping food chains in an ecosystem make up a food web.

Detailed explanation-3: -Each level in the food chain is called a trophic level. The different trophic levels are Primary producers, primary consumers, secondary consumers, tertiary consumers and quaternary consumers. When dead organic matter becomes the starting of a food chain, then it is called the detritus food chain (DFC).

Detailed explanation-4: -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-5: -Level 1: Plants (producers) Level 2: Animals that eat plants or herbivores (primary consumers) Level 3: Animals that eat herbivores (secondary consumers, carnivores)