food chain
31
2.6
- noun
- /fuːd tʃeɪn/
- Specialized
:
cadena alimentaria
- The decline of bees can disrupt the entire food chain by impacting plant pollination.
- top of the food chain
- bioaccumulate through the food chain
- low on the food chain
I think our place in the food chain is already changed.
- I think our place in the food chain is already changed.
- People like Coach are at the top of the food chain and they still do this.
- And you know, all of those players are like they're, they're at the top of the food chain with, with everything that we do, right?
- So when we talking basketball, you got the Currys, the LeBron James at the top of the food chain and NBA.
- They're low down the food chain and so they have much lower emissions associated with eating them.
- OK, you may say who cares about seabirds and fish, but The thing is, once you have a substance in the food chain, it'll spread through the entire ecosystem.
- But you know, so like, like up the food chain for me.
- Two things happened on that trip, seeing the food chain impacts and then also one day when.
- Now I unveil to you my current top tier, top of the food chain place to sit right here.
- And if you're not on the food chain it means you're down in the depths of the dark sea.
- And so he was kind of, he was, you know, up but also down in the food chain, as they say.
- I just feel like when it's part of the food chain, when I go as part of the food chain, like, ah, that's poetry.
Examples
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Where are you on the food chain?
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Indeed, whales, being at the top of the food chain, are particularly vulnerable.
Academic text (1995) -
I think our place in the food chain is already changed.
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At work, we are no longer at the high end of the food chain.
Academic text (1999) -
The polar bear is on top of the food chain.
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In their own ecosystem, the species I discovered in South America live at the top of the food chain.
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If we don't eat meat, we lose our place in the food chain.
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The bioaccumulation of toxins in the food chain has been known in the scientific community for years.
Academic text (2004) -
Phytoplankton are the foundation of the marine food chain, providing energy for larger creatures.
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In a desert ecosystem, the food chain starts with small plants, which are eaten by herbivores.
Synonyms
3
3.4
A network of plants and animals showing who eats whom
How Connected
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly compositional: 'chain' denotes a series or linked sequence and 'food' restricts that series to the domain of food, so 'food chain' naturally means a sequence relating to food (e.g., ecological levels or the sequence from producers to consumers). This noun–noun compounding is cross-linguistically common and follows standard English patterns, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents will very likely infer the MWE's meaning.
Etymology
Food chain paints a clear picture: the word food seen as links on a chain, where one animal eats the one below it and energy moves up the line. So the phrase means 'the order of who eats whom' in nature.