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Glite Dictionary
food web

food web

3 3.4
A network of plants and animals showing who eats whom
  • noun
  • /fuːd wɛb/
  • Specialized
translation icon : red alimentaria
  • In a desert ecosystem, the food web includes plants, herbivores, and various carnivores.
  • lake food web
  • soil food web
  • marine food web

So it's such a, an amazing concept of the, the food web in place.

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Examples

  • Changes to one part of the food web inevitably cascade throughout.

    Academic text (2011)

  • Together, plants and animals contribute to diversity and complex food webs and chains.

    Academic text (1996)

  • If you look at a food web, then things get a little a little bit more complicated.

  • Connect one or more species to their places in the food web of the estuary.

    Academic text (1998)

  • For example, little is known about the potential for the new food web to functionally replace the old one.

    Academic text (1992)

  • Scientists fear that it's affecting the dynamics of the lake's food web, including fish stock abundance and production.

    Academic text (2006)

  • A generalized food web for lakes with lake trout is shown in Figure 3.

    Academic text (1999)

  • Furthermore, entire food webs, not just single species, may be modified by altered flow timing.

    Academic text (1997)

  • Terrestrial food webs are pyramidal in shape and dominated by plant biomass.

    Academic text (2009)

  • Like them or not, insects are the structural and foundational base of most of the world's food webs, and all of those food webs would collapse without them.

Synonyms

food cycle
vsfood web
  • Specialized
4.2

A system where energy and nutrients move between plants, animals and tiny living things that break down dead matter

focuses on who eats whom and species relationships in the community

How Complex

food web
  • Specialized
3 3.4
food chain
  • Specialized
31 2.6

Surface Forms

food web singular
food webs plural

Morphology

food + web

The phrase combines 'food' (what organisms eat) with 'web' used in its figurative sense of a network, so the meaning 'a network of feeding relationships' is directly derivable from the constituents. The metaphorical use of 'web' as a network is common cross-linguistically and in general English, so a B1 learner who knows both words would readily infer the MWE's meaning.

Etymology

The noun food web uses the image of a spider's web where lines link each animal or plant to the food it eats. If one line breaks, many parts of the web change, so the phrase means 'a network of animals and plants connected by who eats whom'.