Food chain

 Definition
A food chain is a linear network of links in a food web starting from producer
organisms and ending at
predators or decomposers.
 History
Food chain were first introduced by the Arab scientist and philosopher al-jahiz in
the 9th century.
 Characteristics
A food chain also shows how the organisms are related with each other by the
food they eat
Each level of a food chain represents tropic level.
In a food chain there is also reliable energy transfer through each stage. The
amount of energy from one stage to another decrease.
 Differ from food web
A food chain differs from food web because the complex network of different
animals feeding relation are aggregated and the chain only follows a direct linear
pathway of one animal at a time.
Examples
1. In grassland ecosystem
The plant (producers) is eaten by locust (primary consumer). The grasshopper
is eaten by frog (secondary consumer). This in turn may be fed upon by snake
tertiary consumer). the snake is eaten by hawk (quaternary consumer)
 2. In pond ecosystem
Unicellular algae and plants (producers) are eaten by zooplankton, insects,
molluscs, etc. (primary consumer). these in turn consumed by insects’ frogs etc.
(secondary consumer). these may eat by game fishes otters etc. (tertiary
consumer)

Types of food chain

Basically, two types of food chain are recognized
1) Grazing or predator food chain
2) Detritus food chain
Grazing or predator food chain
This type of food chain starts from living green plants that are grazed or preyed
upon by herbivores.

From energy point of view there is no difference between predator and parasite
food chain since both parasite and predator are primary consumers.
A typical predator food chain is as under
Mango tree → aphids → ladybirds → spiders → small insectivorous birds
→ hawks
Example of parasitic food chain is as
1. Vegetable → nematodes → bacteria
 2. Cow → fleas → leptomonas
From the example it may be seen that
a. Predator food chain are relatively longer than parasitic food chain which
involve few transfers.
b. In parasitic food chain the members starting with host becomes
progressively smaller in size and more numerous with each level in food
chain. As, in example 1. The roots of vegetation crop are parasitized by
hundreds of nematodes witch in turn may be attacked by millions of
bacteria. Example 2, A single mammal act as a host to hundred of fleas each
flea in turn harbors thousands of flagellated protozoans belonging to the
genus leptomonas
Detritus food chain
This type of food chain in contrast to grazing type starts from dead organic matter
into microorganisms and then to organisms feeding to detritus.
 In pond ecosystem for example detritus food chain is
Detritus → detritivores → small fish →carnivores
 In forest ecosystem for example detritus food chain is
Detritus →soil bacteria → earthworms