food cycle
- noun
- /fuːd ˈsaɪkəl/
- Specialized
:
ciclo alimentario
- In a balanced food cycle, each organism plays a vital role in maintaining the health of the environment.
Examples
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The food cycle describes how energy and nutrients flow through different organisms in an ecosystem.
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On top of all that, a whole lot of greenhouse gases are produced during the food cycle.
Blog text (29) -
The family is now fully in control of all parts of the food cycle: when they work as laborers to produce it, they are subjugated to power, but here they prepare and consume it, exercising their cultural signifying power through cuisine.
Academic text (2016) -
Studying the food cycle helps us understand the interactions between producers, consumers, and decomposers.
Synonyms
3
3.4
A network of plants and animals showing who eats whom
How Connected
Surface Forms
Morphology
The compound is directly built from 'food' (substances consumed) and 'cycle' (a repeating sequence), so a B1 learner who knows both words can infer it refers to a recurring process involving food—how energy or nutrients move through an ecosystem. The term is a literal, scientific composition with close equivalents in many languages (e.g. Spanish 'ciclo alimentario'), which supports clear cross-linguistic transparency.
Etymology
Food cycle comes from the simple image of a circle, the idea behind cycle: plants make food, animals eat the plants, and when they die tiny organisms break them down and return nutrients to the soil so plants can grow again. That's why food cycle means 'a system where energy and nutrients move among plants, animals and decomposers'.