Meaning & use
food chain
A sequence of organisms in an ecosystem, each dependent on the next as a source of food.
See it in a sentence
In the ocean food chain, small fish eat plankton and are in turn eaten by larger predators.
Removing wolves from the region disrupted the entire local food chain.
A note on using this word
A food chain shows a single linear path of energy transfer, while a food web shows the many overlapping chains within an ecosystem.
Words with a similar meaning
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