Marine food chain & food web interaction
by Cindy
in Blog
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Did you already hear about marine food chain? And marine food web?

A marine food chain is a linear network of organisms that eat one another to transfer matter and energy in a form of food through an ecosystem. IE: one-celled life is eaten by shrimps, shrimps are eaten by small fishes, small fishes are eaten by tunas, tunas are eaten by sharks.

Then regarding on how animals obtain their food, they are classified in 2 categories: producers or consumers. The first ones are making their own food mainly by photosynthesis (IE algae) and the second ones obtains nutrients and energy by eating organic substance (IE dugongs).

A marine food web is a group of different organisms linked to each other in order of the food they eat. It is an interconnected system of food chains. The species coexist in the same environment and the food web shows all the interactions that happen between communities living in saltwater ecosystems. (This is not linear, an it is about the feeding relationships)

As all is interconnected, it is easy to understand that if a change appears, it could unbalance the whole system. If a specie lost its predator for example, it could overgrow and kill their preys. Or if a specie disappears, their predator could lose their food.

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