What term describes the complex network of interconnected and overlapping food chains within an ecological community, reflecting that most organisms consume and are consumed by multiple species?
Answer and explanation
Correct answer: D. Food web
- Step 1: Real-world ecosystems rarely exhibit simple isolated feeding chains because consumers are generalists feeding across diverse prey.
- Step 2: A food web models the holistic multidirectional network of trophic interactions in an ecosystem, highlighting functional redundancies that provide community resilience against the loss of individual species.
Answer
Food web
Why not the others: 'Linear food chain' A linear food chain is a single, simplified linear pathway showing who eats whom (e.g., grass -> zebra -> lion); 'Trophic pyramid' A trophic pyramid is a graphical depiction of energy, biomass, or numbers across levels, not the detailed network of species interactions; 'Ecological succession' Ecological succession is the chronological replacement of community types over time following disturbance.
Practise more Biomes and Global Ecosystems.
Free questions with an explanation for every one, and full timed General Knowledge mock tests.
More Biomes and Global Ecosystems questions
- Which terrestrial biome represents the largest contiguous forest ecosystem on Earth, circling the subarctic high latitudes of North America…
- What name is given to the permanently frozen subsoil layer found throughout the Arctic tundra that prevents deep plant root penetration and…
- What mutualistic microscopic algae live inside the gastrodermal tissues of reef-building stony corals, providing corals with photosynthetic…
- What specialized aerial root adaptations enable mangrove trees (such as Avicennia) to absorb atmospheric oxygen while growing in waterlogged…
- In an ecological food chain, approximately what percentage of energy is transferred from one trophic level to the next higher trophic level…
- What term coined by ecologist Robert Paine describes a species whose presence and ecological role exert an exceptionally large influence on…