A food chain describes how energy and nutrients move through an ecosystem. At the basic level there are plants that produce the energy, then it moves up to higher-level organisms like herbivores. In the food chain, energy is transferred from one living organism through another in the form of food.

Food webs illustrate energy flow from primary producers to primary consumers (herbivores), and from primary consumers to secondary consumers (carnivores). In a trophic cascade, predators induce effects that cascade down the food chain and affect biomass of organisms at least two links away (Ricklefs 2008).

A food chain shows how each living thing gets its food. Some animals eat plants and some animals eat other animals. For example, a simple food chain links the trees and shrubs, the giraffes (that eat trees and shrubs), and the lions (that eat the giraffes). Each link in this chain is food for the next link.

Humans are said to be at the top of the food chain because they eat plants and animals of all kinds but are not eaten consistently by any animals. The human food chain starts with plants. Plants eaten by humans are called fruits and vegetables, and when they eat these plants, humans are primary consumers.

It’s a platitude that we’ve all heard dozens of times, whether to justify our treatment of other species or simply to celebrate a carnivorous lifestyle: humans are the top of the food chain. Ecologists, though, have a statistical way of calculating a species’ trophic level—its level, or rank, in a food chain.

(1) Humans are not unique relative to the other animals; (2) Therefore, humans are not superior; Thus, cruelty to animals is not justified. Humans are unique because they have attributes which no other animal has. Some nonhuman animals can certainly use tools and solve complex problems.

There are 2 types of food chains, namely Grazing food chain and Detritous food chain. Grazing food chain starts from producers or plants and passes on to herbivorous primary consumers to carnivorous secondary consumers and ends with tertiary carnivorous animals.

Hungry birds Weasels, snakes and foxes all eat birds – and so do other birds, including hawks, owls and gulls.