What distinguishes a food chain from a food web?

• A. A food chain shows interrelated feeding relationships; a food web shows a single energy transfer path.
• B. A food chain includes decomposers; a food web excludes producers.
• C. A food chain is a short, linear model; a food web is a misnomer.
• D. A food chain shows a single energy transfer path; a food web shows interrelated feeding relationships in an ecosystem.

Answer: (D)

Understanding how energy moves through ecosystems is being tested. A food chain shows a single, linear path of who eats whom, representing one path along which energy passes from producers to consumers. In contrast, a food web is a complex network of many interrelated feeding relationships, where organisms can have multiple prey and multiple predators, so energy can flow along several pathways. That’s why a food chain is like a straight line, while a food web shows the interconnected feeding connections in an ecosystem.

For example, a simple chain might be sunlight → grass → rabbit → fox. A food web would include that same set of organisms but also other links, such as grass being eaten by insects, insects by birds, and decomposers recycling material from all levels, creating many overlapping pathways of energy flow.