Trophic relationships

The trophic or food relationships are the relationships of food dependency that are established between the different trophic levels of an ecosystem.

Organisms at a trophic level obtain matter and energy from organisms at a lower trophic level.

Two types of trophic relationships are distinguished:

• Trophic chains.
• Food webs.

Trophic chains

The food chain describes the process of transfer of matter and energy between the organisms of an ecosystem. It is a linear sequence in which the direction of nutrients and energy from one organism to another is indicated by arrows.

Tomada de Wikipedia, de chris 論 (through works of J. Patrick Fischer, C. Schuhmacher, Madprime, Luis Fernández García, Luis Miguel Bugallo Sánchez, chung-tung yeh, Susanne Heyer and Simon Andrews)

Interactive activity: Complete the food chains.

Interactive activity: Food chains.

Food webs

But as you might think, the food chain is a very simple representation, since a species does not feed exclusively on another species, but many different food chains are established. A species can be consumed by many types of organisms and feed on several different species. For this reason, more than chains, in nature there are trophic networks , a set of related trophic chains that express all the food relationships that occur between the organisms of an ecosystem.

By Matthew C. Perry [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Interactive activity: Food webs.