essay for food web

What Is a Food Web? Definition, Types, and Examples

Emory University
Chattahoochee Technical College

Treehugger / Ellen Lindner

Animal Rights
Endangered Species

Food Web Definition

Trophic levels in a food web, energy movement, food web vs. food chain, types of food webs, importance of the study of food webs.

A food web is a detailed interconnecting diagram that shows the overall food relationships between organisms in a particular environment. The simplest explanation is that food webs are "who eats whom" diagrams showing the complex feeding relationships for a specific ecosystem.

The study of food webs is important, as such webs can show how energy flows through an ecosystem . It also helps us understand how toxins and pollutants become concentrated within a particular ecosystem. Examples include mercury bioaccumulation in the Florida Everglades and mercury accumulation in the San Francisco Bay.

Food webs can also help us study and explain how species diversity is related to how they fit within the overall food dynamic. They may also reveal critical information about the relationships between invasive species and those native to a particular ecosystem.

Key Takeaways: What Is a Food Web?

Think of a food web as a "who eats whom" diagram showing an ecosystem's complex feeding relationships.
Knowing the interconnectedness of organisms in energy transfer within an ecosystem is vital to understanding food webs and how they apply to real-world science.
An increase in toxic substances, like man-made persistent organic pollutants (POPs), can profoundly impact ecosystem species.
By analyzing food webs, scientists can study and predict how substances move through the ecosystem to help prevent the bioaccumulation and biomagnification of harmful substances.

The concept of a food web, previously known as a food cycle, is typically credited to Charles Elton, who first introduced it in his book Animal Ecology, published in 1927. He is considered one of the founders of modern ecology and his book is a seminal work. In this book, he also introduced other important ecological concepts like niche and succession .

In a food web, organisms are arranged according to their trophic level. An organism's trophic level refers to how it fits within the food web and is based on how it feeds.

There are two main designations: autotrophs and heterotrophs. Autotrophs make their food, while heterotrophs do not. Within this broad designation are five main trophic levels: primary producers, primary consumers, secondary consumers, tertiary consumers, and apex predators.

A food web shows how the different trophic levels within various food chains interconnect and how energy flows through them within an ecosystem.

Primary Producers

Primary producers make their food via photosynthesis, which uses the sun's energy to make food by converting its light energy into chemical energy. Examples of primary producers include plants and algae. These organisms are also known as autotrophs.

Primary Consumers

Primary consumers are animals that eat the primary producers. They are named as such because they are the first organisms to eat the primary producers who make their own food. Primary consumers are also known as herbivores. Examples of animals in this designation are rabbits, beavers, elephants , and moose.

Secondary Consumers

Secondary consumers consist of organisms that eat primary consumers. Since secondary consumers are animals that eat the animals that eat the plants, they are called carnivorous or omnivorous. Carnivores eat animals, while omnivores consume both other animals and plants. Bears are an example of a secondary consumer.

Tertiary Consumers

Similar to secondary consumers, tertiary consumers can be carnivorous or omnivorous. The difference is that secondary consumers eat other carnivores. An example is an eagle.

Apex Predators

Lastly, the final level is composed of apex predators . Apex predators are at the top because they do not have natural predators. Lions are an example.

Decomposers and Detritivores

Additionally, organisms known as decomposers consume dead plants and animals and break them down. Fungi are examples of decomposers. Other organisms known as detritivores consume dead organic material. A vulture is an example of a detrivore.

Energy flows through the different trophic levels. It begins with the sun's energy, which autotrophs use to produce food. This energy is transferred up the levels as the different organisms are consumed by members of the levels above them.

Approximately 10% of the energy transferred from one trophic level to the next is converted to biomass—the overall mass of an organism or the mass of all the organisms that exist in a given trophic level.

Since organisms expend energy to move around and go about their daily activities, only a part of the energy consumed is stored as biomass.

VectorMine / Getty Images

While a food web contains all constituent food chains in an ecosystem, food chains are a different construct. A food web can be composed of multiple food chains, some very short and others much longer. Food chains follow the flow of energy as it moves through the chain. The starting point is the energy from the sun, and this energy is traced as it moves through the food chain. This movement is typically linear, from one organism to another.

For example, a short food chain may consist of plants that use the sun's energy to produce their food through photosynthesis and the herbivore that consumes these plants. This herbivore may be eaten by two different carnivores, which are a part of this food chain. When these carnivores are killed or die, the decomposers in the chain break down the carnivores, returning nutrients to the soil that can be used by plants.

This brief chain is one of many parts of the overall food web that exists in an ecosystem. Other food chains in the food web for this particular ecosystem may be very similar to this example or may be much different.

Since it is composed of all of the food chains in an ecosystem, the food web shows how the organisms in an ecosystem interconnect.

Blueringmedia / Getty Images

There are several types of food webs, which differ in how they are constructed and what they show or emphasize about the organisms within the particular ecosystem depicted.

Scientists can use connectance and interaction food webs, along with energy flow, fossil, and functional food webs, to depict different aspects of the relationships within an ecosystem. They can also further classify the types of food webs based on the ecosystem being depicted in the web.

Connectance Food Webs

In a connectance food web, scientists use arrows to show one species being consumed by another. All of the arrows are equally weighted. The degree of strength of the consumption of one species by another is not depicted.

Interaction Food Webs

Like in connectance food webs, scientists also use arrows in interaction food webs to show one species being consumed by another. However, the arrows used are weighted to show the degree or strength of consumption of one species by another.

The arrows depicted in such arrangements can be wider, bolder, or darker to denote the strength of consumption if one species typically consumes another. If the interaction between species is weak, the arrow can be very narrow or nonexistent.

Energy Flow Food Webs

Energy flow food webs depict the relationships between organisms in an ecosystem by quantifying and showing the energy flux between organisms.

Fossil Food Webs

Food webs can be dynamic, and the food relationships within an ecosystem can change over time. Scientists attempt to reconstruct the relationships between species in a fossil food web based on available evidence from the fossil record.

Functional Food Webs

Functional food webs depict the relationships between organisms in an ecosystem by depicting how different populations influence the growth rate of other populations within the environment.

Food Webs and Type of Ecosystems

Scientists can also subdivide the above types of food webs based on the type of ecosystem. For example, an energy-flow aquatic food web would depict the energy flux relationships in an aquatic environment. In contrast, an energy-flow terrestrial food web would show such relationships on land.

Food webs show us how energy moves through an ecosystem, from the sun to producers to consumers. The interconnectedness of how organisms are involved in this energy transfer within an ecosystem is vital to understanding food webs and how they apply to real-world science.

Just as energy can move through an ecosystem, other substances can also move through. There can be devastating effects when toxic substances or poisons are introduced into an ecosystem.

Bioaccumulation and biomagnification are important concepts. Bioaccumulation is the accumulation of a substance, like poison or a contaminant, in an animal. Biomagnification refers to the buildup and increase in the concentration of said substance as it is passed from trophic level to trophic level in a food web.

This increase in toxic substances can profoundly impact species within an ecosystem. For example, man-made synthetic chemicals often do not break down easily or quickly and can build up in an animal's fatty tissues over time. These substances are known as persistent organic pollutants (POPs).

Marine environments are common examples of how these toxic substances can move, such as from phytoplankton to zooplankton, then to fish that eat the zooplankton, then to other fish (like salmon) who eat those fish, and up to orca who eat salmon. Orcas have a high blubber content so the POPs can be found at very high levels. These levels can cause several issues like reproductive problems, developmental issues with their young as well as immune system issues.

By analyzing and understanding food webs, scientists can study and predict how substances may move through the ecosystem. They can then better help prevent the bioaccumulation and biomagnification of these toxic substances in the environment through intervention.

“ Food Webs and Networks: the Architecture of Biodiversity .” Life Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign , Biology Department.
“ 11.4: Food Chains and Food Webs .” Geosciences LibreTexts , Libretexts.
“ Terrestrial Food Webs .” Smithsonian Environmental Research Center.
“ Bioaccumulation and Biomagnification: Increasingly Concentrated Problems! ” CIMI School.
Food Chains and Food Webs: Learn the Difference
Energy Flow in Ecosystems
What Are Biotic and Abiotic Factors in an Ecosystem?
Why Choosing Nectar-Rich Plants for a Garden Is So Important
How Does Mercury Get in Fish?
What Is an Indicator Species? 10 Key Examples
Why Flowering Meadows Are Better Than Lawns
What Is a Trophic Cascade? Definition and Ecological Impact
What Is a Pioneer Species?
Lichens in a Garden and What They Tell You
Understanding the Sustainable Seafood Industry
Types of Forests: Definitions, Examples, and Importance
What Is Glitter? Environmental Impact and Sustainable Alternatives
10 Stunning Plants and Sea Creatures on the Ocean Floor
Male Spiders Fight Less When There Are More Females Around
3 Types of Biodiversity: Overview and Importance

Food Chains and Webs

A food chain outlines who eats whom. A food web is all of the food chains in an ecosystem. Each organism in an ecosystem occupies a specific trophic level or position in the food chain or web. Producers, who make their own food using photosynthesis or chemosynthesis, make up the bottom of the trophic pyramid. Primary consumers, mostly herbivores, exist at the next level, and secondary and tertiary consumers, omnivores and carnivores, follow. At the top of the system are the apex predators: animals who have no predators other than humans.

Help your class explore food chains and webs with these resources.

Biology, Ecology

school Campus Bookshelves
menu_book Bookshelves
perm_media Learning Objects
login Login
how_to_reg Request Instructor Account
hub Instructor Commons

Margin Size

Download Page (PDF)
Download Full Book (PDF)
Periodic Table
Physics Constants
Scientific Calculator
Reference & Cite
Tools expand_more
Readability

selected template will load here

This action is not available.

6.4: Food Chains and Food Webs

Last updated
Save as PDF
Page ID 6556

$ \newcommand{\vecs}[1]{\overset { \scriptstyle \rightharpoonup} {\mathbf{#1}} } $

$ \newcommand{\vecd}[1]{\overset{-\!-\!\rightharpoonup}{\vphantom{a}\smash {#1}}} $

$ \newcommand{\id}{\mathrm{id}}$ $ \newcommand{\Span}{\mathrm{span}}$

( \newcommand{\kernel}{\mathrm{null}\,}\) $ \newcommand{\range}{\mathrm{range}\,}$

$ \newcommand{\RealPart}{\mathrm{Re}}$ $ \newcommand{\ImaginaryPart}{\mathrm{Im}}$

$ \newcommand{\Argument}{\mathrm{Arg}}$ $ \newcommand{\norm}[1]{\| #1 \|}$

$ \newcommand{\inner}[2]{\langle #1, #2 \rangle}$

$ \newcommand{\Span}{\mathrm{span}}$

$ \newcommand{\id}{\mathrm{id}}$

$ \newcommand{\kernel}{\mathrm{null}\,}$

$ \newcommand{\range}{\mathrm{range}\,}$

$ \newcommand{\RealPart}{\mathrm{Re}}$

$ \newcommand{\ImaginaryPart}{\mathrm{Im}}$

$ \newcommand{\Argument}{\mathrm{Arg}}$

$ \newcommand{\norm}[1]{\| #1 \|}$

$ \newcommand{\Span}{\mathrm{span}}$ $ \newcommand{\AA}{\unicode[.8,0]{x212B}}$

$ \newcommand{\vectorA}[1]{\vec{#1}} % arrow$

$ \newcommand{\vectorAt}[1]{\vec{\text{#1}}} % arrow$

$ \newcommand{\vectorB}[1]{\overset { \scriptstyle \rightharpoonup} {\mathbf{#1}} } $

$ \newcommand{\vectorC}[1]{\textbf{#1}} $

$ \newcommand{\vectorD}[1]{\overrightarrow{#1}} $

$ \newcommand{\vectorDt}[1]{\overrightarrow{\text{#1}}} $

$ \newcommand{\vectE}[1]{\overset{-\!-\!\rightharpoonup}{\vphantom{a}\smash{\mathbf {#1}}}} $

f-d:a9a9d2ca6e4696cb599b83facbc19ad6753c8c2217ae8a3164111836 IMAGE_TINY IMAGE_TINY.1

Who eats whom?

Describing the flow of energy within an ecosystem essentially answers this question. To survive, one must eat. Why? To get energy. Food chains and webs describe the transfer of energy within an ecosystem, from one organism to another. In other words, they show who eats whom.

Food Chains and Food Webs

Food chains and food webs are diagrams that represent feeding relationships. Essentially, they show who eats whom. In this way, they model how energy and matter move through ecosystems .

Food Chains

A food chain represents a single pathway by which energy and matter flow through an ecosystem. An example is shown in Figure below . Food chains are generally simpler than what really happens in nature. Most organisms consume—and are consumed by—more than one species.

This food chain includes producers and consumers. How could you add decomposers to the food chain?

A food web represents multiple pathways through which energy and matter flow through an ecosystem. It includes many intersecting food chains. It demonstrates that most organisms eat, and are eaten, by more than one species. Examples are shown in Figures below and below .

Food Web. This food web consists of several different food chains. Which organisms are producers in all of the food chains included in the food web?

Examples of food webs.

Food chains and food webs are diagrams that represent feeding relationships.
Food chains and webs model how energy and matter move through ecosystems .
What is a food chain?
Describe the role of decomposers in food webs.
Why is a food web more realistic than a food chain?
Draw a terrestrial food chain that includes four feeding levels.

Home — Essay Samples — Environment — Natural Environment — Food Web: An Exploration of Ecological Relationships

Food Web: an Exploration of Ecological Relationships

Categories: Natural Environment

About this sample

Words: 720 |

Published: Sep 12, 2023

Words: 720 | Pages: 2 | 4 min read

Defining the food web, unveiling ecological relationships, promoting understanding through visual representation.

Cite this Essay

Let us write you an essay from scratch

450+ experts on 30 subjects ready to help
Custom essay delivered in as few as 3 hours

Get high-quality help

Prof. Kifaru

Verified writer

Expert in: Environment

+ 120 experts online

By clicking “Check Writers’ Offers”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy . We’ll occasionally send you promo and account related email

No need to pay just yet!

Related Essays

4 pages / 1755 words

3 pages / 1406 words

3 pages / 1381 words

1 pages / 490 words

Remember! This is just a sample.

You can get your custom paper by one of our expert writers.

121 writers online

Still can’t find what you need?

Browse our vast selection of original essay samples, each expertly formatted and styled

Related Essays on Natural Environment

Environmental stewardship is a guiding principle that recognizes our collective responsibility to care for and protect the natural world that sustains us. In an era marked by environmental challenges such as climate change, [...]

Personality, the unique combination of thoughts, behaviors, and emotions that make each individual distinct, is a complex interplay between genetics and environment. While genetics provide the foundation, the environment plays a [...]

In conclusion, environmental protection is critical for our planet's sustainability, human health, and the global economy. By prioritizing sustainable practices, collective responsibility, and comprehensive solutions, we can [...]

Capgemini Research Institute. (2020). Retail meets sustainability 2020. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/sep/26/global-depression-rates-rise-18-since-2005-who-says

What is a cave? A cave is an underground hollow place large enough for a human to enter. The formation and development of caves are known as speleogenesis, which can occur over the course of millions of years. Caves are formed [...]

Restoritortion from spending time in nature is no new idea, it has been around arguably as long as urbanization and development. Nature has been the inspiration for art, music and literature. However, considering nature in [...]

Get Your Personalized Essay in 3 Hours or Less!

We use cookies to personalyze your web-site experience. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .

Instructions Followed To The Letter
Deadlines Met At Every Stage
Unique And Plagiarism Free

Food Web and Impact of Environmental Degradation Research Paper

Introduction, solution i: conservation, solution ii: promotion of sustainable practices.

The food web is a natural interconnection that describes the manner in which energy is transferred from organism A to B, thereby supporting the survival of both plants and animals. Human beings form an important aspect or part of the food web since they are capable of engaging in activities and making decisions that could transform the overall experiences and outcomes of all other living organisms. Any form of obliteration will make it impossible for people to live sustainability and eventually achieve their goals. The questions of posterity remain critical and are capable of guiding more people and global leaders to make timely decisions and transform in an effort to maintain the integrity of the food web. Nonetheless, various problems exist today that have the potential to affect the food web and make it impossible for more people to get fresh, timely, and high-quality food. Moreover, these issues can also threaten the sustainability of the other organisms that rely on humans for food (Herforth & Ahmed, 2015). As of now, one of the most outstanding urgent problems disorienting the integrity of the food chain is that of environmental degradation.

Environmental degradation refers to the gradual decay of the environment due to the exhaustion of its natural resources, thus reducing the environment’s ability to sustain social and ecological objectives. This is as true as ever when applied to the food web, as there are few ecological systems that are as immediately important to the survival of humanity and other species that rely on it. The problem is multifaceted and affects all factors of production, results in a reduced downpour, catalyzes the speed of global warming, and eventually transforms human life in a negative manner (Trzcinski et al., 2016). Hence, evidence-based efforts and solutions would be needed in an effort to protect the integrity of the food web. Conservation efforts and promotion of sustainable practices are solutions that can help human beings protect the natural environment from continuous degradation and improve the effectiveness and naturalness of the food web (Tefft et al., 2017). Therefore, the effort to stop the disruption and degradation of the food web and the adverse effects associated with it should focus on promoting conservation and sustainable practices.

A brief note on terminology is necessary in the interests of greater clarity. While it might appear that ‘conservation’ and ‘sustainable practices’ refer to the exact same thing by different names, this is not the case. In the course of this paper, ‘conservation’ refers to the preservation of natural resources that are, in any way, involved in the functioning of the food web. On the other hand, ‘sustainable practices’ refers to the wide range of activities that contribute to the long-term maintenance and efficiency of the food web. To illustrate, an agricultural producer rotating crops to ensure that the soil maintains its fertility is an example of conservation. The end customer buying and eating one loaf of bread instead of buying two, eating one, and let the other one go to waste is an example of sustainable practice. Thus, while ‘conservation’ is essentially resource-centric, ‘sustainable practices’ is a broader term that encompasses all manner of activities that mitigate the existing negative impacts on or prevent potential harm to the food web.

Description

There are several binding reasons why humanity should devote its efforts to the conservation of natural environments and prevention of the negative effects associated with the disruption of existing ecological networks. Human beings are the primary stakeholders in the food web since they are more capable of making timely decisions and influencing the existence of other creatures than the other species present on the planet. Moreover, human activities, ranging from predatory exploitation of natural resources to unsafe industrial and agricultural practices resulting in environmental pollution, are one of the foremost factors that threaten the food web. As such, humanity is required to consider evidence-based approaches and solutions to protect the food web from the urgent problem of environmental degradation from practical and moral standpoints alike (International Resource Panel, 2016). Natural and habited environments play significant roles in supporting the food web and ensuring that man gets high-quality food from all the available sources. However, problems of deforestation and overuse of natural resources strain ecosystems and eventually trigger climatic changes, threatening the stability of the food web, the production and reproduction of food, and the access to it.

The list of challenges pertaining to the food web and associated with deforestation as well as other forms of natural resources exhaustion can be long and extensive. Still, it is necessary to cover it at least briefly in order to demonstrate the magnitude of the problem and the acute need for the solution. First of all, poor climatic outcomes and weather changes tend to affect the level of food production, thereby triggering droughts and increased poverty levels (Bieg et al., 2018). Specific agricultural cycles are tied to climate and weather conditions, meaning that the disruption of these will affect agricultural production as well. This leads to the second challenge inherently rooted in environmental degradation: most animals, including human beings, will be unable to lead a healthy and comfortable life. Moreover, it is necessary to look further than the immediate effects of environmental degradation and consider the long-term implications of the food web disruption. Thus, the third reason to engage in conservation efforts is that unaddressed challenges will eventually affect the overall integrity of the natural environment and affect posterity.

To summarize, the preservation of natural environments and ecological networks is essential in many respects, including the production of foods. Environmental disruptions threaten to upset the production and distribution of foods for a wide range of creatures, including humans and other animals. As a primary stakeholder in the food web and the actor best equipped to introduce impactful change, whether for better or for worse, humanity has an obligation to protect the food web from environmental degradation. Therefore, the first evidence-based solution to the problem of gradual environmental decay and its negative impact on the food web is the introduction and promotion of conservation efforts.

Potential Critique Points

The paragraphs above demonstrated the importance of preserving natural environments from disruption for the continued and reliable functioning of the food web. As will be shown below, this first solution gains the support of many professionals and experts in food security and environmental conservation as a means of addressing the challenges facing humanity in this respect. When undertook at a sufficient magnitude, this solution can ensure that more people or stakeholders are involved in supporting the delivery of sustainable results.

As a strategy, conservation offers several key strengths that should not be overlooked, and the first of these is that it has the potential to reduce destruction that otherwise affects the food web negatively. As mentioned above, gradual environmental decay and disruption of existing ecological networks threaten the stability of the food web because they affect the underlying factors of its functioning. Depletion of natural resources, such as freshwater or soil, can cause agriculture to become less efficient or even impossible. On a larger scale, environmental disruption can also affect weather conditions, which impacts the practicability of food production to a considerable degree. Even though the damage is not necessarily permanent, it still takes time for the environment to recover after thorough exploitation. Proper conservation measures will promote the overall sustainability of the natural environment and ensure that the food chains recover within a short time (Janmaimool & Chudech, 2020). As a result, conservation may provide for a swifter recovery of the environment, which, in turn, will prevent the depletion of vital resources and the inevitable challenges to the food web that come with it.

Another key strength associated with conservation as an option for safeguarding the environment from degradation and ensuring the stability of the food web is the practical plausibility of this solution. It was already mentioned that humanity is well-posed to mitigate or alleviate the effects of environmental decay in relative terms – that is, better able to address the problem than the other species. More importantly still, humans are also well-equipped to deal with the issue in absolute terms. Conservation efforts are possible since human beings already possess the relevant knowledge, competencies, and resources and can use these to prevent the ongoing degradation of natural environments and ecological networks that permeate them. Past studies and observations have revealed that the implementation of conservation efforts can help overcome most of the problems affecting the global community, such as climate change and global warming (Muro-Torres et al., 2020). The question is not in humanity’s capability of enacting these measures but solely in the allocation of resources and the presence of the political will. Thus, one more significant advantage of this solution is that it is certainly practically possible, and the means are already known.

One more essential strength inherent in conservation as a solution is the fact that virtually anyone can contribute to it, even if to a small degree. Conservation efforts have far-reaching positive effects that go beyond the immediate positive impact on the food web. Using natural resources skillfully and managing them rationally is crucial to ensure stable and reliable production of foods, but its positive implications extend even further than that. The implementation of such efforts will make the natural environment more sustainable and help solve a wide range of issues, including pollution and overuse of natural resources. Yet all of these depend directly on the magnitude of the efforts undertaken, and this in turn, depends on the number of actors involved. The key advantage of conservation is that all human beings can be involved in it, both at the domestic level and the environmental level (Maynard et al., 2020). To summarize, conservation as a solution has a comparatively low entry threshold because anyone can prevent wasting natural resources through one’s actions. This fact, in turn, means that the solution proposed allows involving a considerable number of actors.

Unfortunately, a number of key concerns arise that human beings should take into consideration if they are to achieve desirable results, and the first group of these weaknesses is purely practical. While humanity as a howl possesses the means to enact efficient conservation measures, it does not mean that every actor is equally well-equipped to do so. To begin with, regional difficulties, such as prolonged droughts, may prevent countries and entire regions from embracing the power of conservation efforts to the fullest extent. Secondly, some communities and developing nations might find it hard to implement proper measures to promote conservation (Surya et al., 2020). Under dire conditions, the primary goal is to deliver the sorely lacking resources, including food, to the community members as soon as possible. In this case, such communities and even nations can view predatory exploitation of natural resources as a preferable approach as compared to conservation if it offers higher yields in less time. In other words, while humanity, in general, is definitely capable of enacting efficient conservation efforts to preserve the food web, this estimation does not apply equally to all actors.

The second group of weaknesses associated with conservation as a strategy considers the subjective perception of environmental degradation as a problem. First of all, many people in all parts of the world do not identify environmental degradation as a major challenge affecting the food web. If people do not view the decay of the environment as a problem in the first place, they are not likely to perceive it as a genuine threat to the food web either.

Moreover, even if the people do not deny the idea of environmental degradation as an actual issue, they may still fail to link it with the food web for several reasons. Industrialization and urbanization discourage more people from focusing on the challenges affecting the food web because of their effect on population distribution between rural and urban areas and the division of labor. To put it simply, a considerable proportion of the population in developed industrialized nations is not involved in food production directly. Consequently, they remain unaware of the possible disorientations in the food supply chain and how it could affect them in the future. This lack of awareness will likely affect the efficiency of conservation efforts negatively unless the actors involved take corresponding measures to inform the population and emphasize the necessity of conservation.

Suggestions for Improvement

In order to facilitate conservation efforts and mitigate environmental degradation and its effect on the food web, it is possible to address some of the identified weaknesses through targeted action. First of all, as the efficiency of the efforts depends directly on the number of dedicated actors participating in them, attracting more countries and governments can help improve the targeted results. This approach will require a certain degree of flexibility, as not every nation is equally prepared and well-equipped to undertake large-scale conservation efforts, but this is a necessary challenge to overcome. Additionally, governments can provide additional training and guidelines to help more people embrace the concept of conservation (Lindgren et al., 2018). Promoting the idea will result in more people becoming aware of the necessity to contribute t the preservation of natural resources. When undertaken consistently and purposefully, continuous improvement efforts can help transform the situation and address the selected problem affecting the food web. Timely provision of resources and careful revaluation of ad hoc strategies for each country and region will be crucial for the conservation strategy to succeed in addressing the issue.

The second solution that should also be efficient in addressing the urgent problem currently facing the food web is the promotion of sustainable practices. Mush like with the conservation efforts, sustainable practices are well-known, evidence-based, and capable of delivering timely results in an efficient and reliable manner. The most appropriate measures would be to conserve energy, consider proper initiatives to produce food at the personal level, and engage in sustainable agricultural practices. Individuals can introduce better procedures for producing and preserving food in their respective households as well as contribute to solving problems that might emerge. Better preservation techniques can help boost the effectiveness of the food web and prevent edible products from wasting. Moreover, households, companies, communities, and governments can seek approaches and impose policies that stress sustainability in a wide range of human activities for a better overall result. Just as conservation preserves the existing resources from irresponsible predatory exploitation, sustainable practices ensure that the products made with the use of these resources are employed more efficiently, reducing the load on the food web.

One crucial strength that makes sustainable practices a preferable strategy to address the issues with the food web is its high and nearly universal applicability. As a consequence, this solution is capable of delivering positive results within a short period because it attracts all possible partners. Individual citizens can take the initiative at the personal level to ensure that the integrity of the food web is maintained by adopting and promoting responsible food use and reducing food waste. On an organizational level, companies and households could be involved to maximize the efficiency of their resource use as it pertains to the food web functioning, reducing the need for additional resource intake. On municipal, regional, and national levels, governments should be involved to educate members of the public and provide the relevant ideas to preserve or promote the effectiveness of the food web. On the international level, countries and nations should cooperate and make binding agreements regarding sustainable practices, including those that pertain directly to the food web. Overall, there is a potential contribution available for every conceivable actor and a wide range of opportunities to impact the food web positively.

Another essential strength associated with sustainable practices as a strategy is its potential to attract new participants. Much like with the conservation strategy discussed above, the efficiency of sustainable practices depends directly on the magnitude of the fort and, therefore, on the number and prominence of the actors involved. As mentioned in the previous paragraph, sustainable practices have the advantage of providing swift, measurable, and quantifiable results, such as the reduction in food waste or an increase in the resource use efficiency by producers. Consequently, when such measures are taken, the chances are high that the international community will eventually detect positive results and recognize the efficiency of this solution (Turner et al., 2018). With this being the case, the number of national and international actors that embrace sustainable practices will probably grow, increasing the efficiency of the measure synergistically. Thus, the relative practicability of sustainable practices and their potential for delivering robust data in the shape of easily identifiable and measurable results should make this particular solution more appealing to potential participants worldwide.

While the proposed measures are attainable and capable of delivering positive results, one should also be aware of the gaps that might affect the targeted outcomes. The weaknesses of sustainable practices as a strategy are largely the same that the ones inherent in conservation efforts and primarily concern the attraction of new participants. Previous paragraphs mentioned that sustainable practices that deliver swift and quantifiable results would likely be efficient in enlisting cooperation. However, this effect will only occur if the actors are willing to prevent or mitigate the threats to the food web and simply seek the best strategy. This is where the problem lies: not all organizations and governments could be willing to be part of this process and promote the notion of sustainability in the first place (Ritchie & Roser, 2020). Additionally, while sustainable practices are technically available to all kinds of actors, people might not have access to the financial and material resources to support sustainable solutions in their respective households. These considerations may limit the overall effectiveness of sustainable practices as a solution to address the problem affecting the food web.

Overcoming the challenges associated with attracted new actors and increasing the magnitude and overall effect of sustainable practices are crucial for the success of this solution. It is necessary to involve as many key stakeholders as possible in order to achieve meaningful positive results. The solution has to be present at all levels, including individuals, households, companies, municipal, regional, and national administrations, and international organizations. Apart from that, every possible effort has to be undertaken to broaden the scope of sustainable practices. Humans need to consider additional practices that protect all living things, including plants and animals. Research would be needed to identify specific challenges affecting the food web in different countries and regions and proposed better solutions to make it more sustainable. Provided these suggestions are followed, promotion of sustainable practices will likely prove an invaluable strategy for addressing the challenge of environmental degradation and its adverse impact on the food web.

As one can see, the biggest or urgent problem currently facing the food web is that of continuous environmental degradation. Predatory exploitation of natural resources, irresponsible use of edible products, and high degrees of food waste pose a serious threat to the sustainability of the food web in the long run. As a technologically developed species and a key stakeholder in the food web, humanity has the responsibility to address the problems that face it. Evidence-based and practical solutions are necessary to protect the integrity of the food web and ensure its stable and continuous functioning in the foreseeable future. Conservation efforts designed to preserve existing natural resources and protect them from predatory exploitation should be an inherent part of the solution. The promotion of sustainable practices on all levels, from individual to international, is also a workable solution that can deliver measurable results in a relatively short time span. If undertaken at a sufficiently large magnitude with a considerable number of actors, such measures will mitigate the negative effects of natural environment degradation on the food web.

Bieg, C., McCann, K. S., McMeans, B. C., Rooney, N., Holtgrieve, G. W., Lek, S., Bun, N. P., Krishna, B. K., & Fraser, E. (2018). Linking humans to food webs: A framework for the classification of global fisheries. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 16 (7), 412-420. Web.

Herforth, A., & Ahmed, S. (2015). The food environment, its effects on dietary consumption, and potential for measurement within agriculture-nutrition interventions. Food Security, 7 , 505-520. Web.

International Resource Panel. (2016). Food systems and natural resources. United Nations Environment Programme.

Janmaimool, P., & Chudech, S. (2020). Effect of domestic and global environmental events on environmental concern and environmental responsibility among university students. Sustainability, 12 (4), 1610-1629. Web.

Lindgren, E., Harris, F., Dangour, A. D., Gasparatos, A., Hiramatsu, M., Javadi, F., Loken, B., Murakami, T., Scheelbeek, P., & Haines, A. (2018). Sustainable food systems-A health perspective. Sustainability Science, 13, 1505-1517. Web.

Maynard, D. C., Vidigal, M. D., Farage, P., Zandonadi, P. P., Nakano, E. Y., & Botelho, R. B. (2020). Environmental, social and economic sustainability indicators applied to food services: A systematic review. Sustainability, 12 (2), 1804-1822. Web.

Muro-Torres, V. M., Amezcua, F., Soto- Jiménez, M., Balart, E. F., Serviere-Zaragoza, E., Green, F., & Rajnohova, J. (2020). Primary sources and food web structure of a tropical wetland with high density of mangrove forest. Water,12 (11), 3105-3122. Web.

Ritchie, H., & Roser, M. (2020). Environmental impacts of food production. Our World in Data. Web.

Surya, B., Syafri, S., Sahban, H., & Sakti, H. H. (2020). Natural resource conservation based on community economic empowerment: Perspectives on watershed management and slum settlements in Makassar City, South Sulawesi, Indonesia. Land, 9 (), 104-133. Web.

Tefft, J., Jonasova, M., Adjao, R., & Morgan, A. (2017). Food systems for an urbanizing world (PDF document). Web.

Trzcinski, M. K., Srivastava, D. S., Corbara, B., & Dézerald, O. (2016). The effects of food-web structure on ecosystem function exceeds those of precipitation. Journal of Animal Ecology, 85 (5), 1147-1160. Web.

Turner, C., Aggarwal, A., Walls, H., Herforth, A., Drewnowski, A., Coates, J., Kalamatianou, S., & Kadiyala, S. (2018). Concepts and critical perspectives for food environment research: A global framework with implications for action in low- and middle-income countries. Global Food Security, 18 (1), 93-101. Web.

Chicago (A-D)
Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2022, June 20). Food Web and Impact of Environmental Degradation. https://ivypanda.com/essays/food-web-and-impact-of-environmental-degradation/

"Food Web and Impact of Environmental Degradation." IvyPanda , 20 June 2022, ivypanda.com/essays/food-web-and-impact-of-environmental-degradation/.

IvyPanda . (2022) 'Food Web and Impact of Environmental Degradation'. 20 June.

IvyPanda . 2022. "Food Web and Impact of Environmental Degradation." June 20, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/food-web-and-impact-of-environmental-degradation/.

1. IvyPanda . "Food Web and Impact of Environmental Degradation." June 20, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/food-web-and-impact-of-environmental-degradation/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Food Web and Impact of Environmental Degradation." June 20, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/food-web-and-impact-of-environmental-degradation/.

Environmental Degradation Impacts of Concrete Use in Construction
Environmental Degradation and the Use of Technology in the Agricultural Sector
“Silent Spring” by Rachel Carson
Local Hazard Mitigation: Floods
Water Quality and the Water Board Scenario
Coal Seam Gas Industry Impact: Environmental Epidemiology
Strategy for Garnering Effective Action on Climate Change Mitigation
Sustainable Environmental Policy: Fight the Emerging Issues

Food Chain and Food Web

Producers - Plants are producers. This is because they produce energy for the ecosystem. They do this because they absorb energy from sunlight through photosynthesis . They also need water and nutrients from the soil, but plants are the only place where new energy is made.
Consumers - Animals are consumers. This is because they don't produce energy, they just use it up. Animals that eat plants are called primary consumers or herbivores. Animals that eat other animals are called secondary consumers or carnivores. If a carnivore eats another carnivore, it is called a tertiary consumer. Some animals play both roles, eating both plants and animals. They are called omnivores.
Decomposers - Decomposers eat decaying matter (like dead plants and animals). They help put nutrients back into the soil for plants to eat. Examples of decomposers are worms, bacteria, and fungi.
grass = producer
zebra = primary consumer
lion = secondary consumer

Level 1: Plants (producers)
Level 2: Animals that eat plants or herbivores (primary consumers)
Level 3: Animals that eat herbivores (secondary consumers, carnivores)
Level 4: Animals that eat carnivores (tertiary consumers, carnivores)
Level 5: Animals at the top of the food chain are called apex predators. Nothing eats these animals.
Take a ten question quiz about this page.
Listen to a recorded reading of this page:

Back to Kids Science Page

Back to Kids Study Page

If you're seeing this message, it means we're having trouble loading external resources on our website.

If you're behind a web filter, please make sure that the domains *.kastatic.org and *.kasandbox.org are unblocked.

To log in and use all the features of Khan Academy, please enable JavaScript in your browser.

Biology library

Course: biology library > unit 28.

Ecosystems and biomes
What is an ecosystem?
Flow of energy and matter through ecosystems
Food chains & food webs
Energy flow & primary productivity

Food chains and food webs

(Choice A) Sea gull - tertiary consumer A Sea gull - tertiary consumer
(Choice B) Krill - producer B Krill - producer
(Choice C) Mackerel - primary consumer C Mackerel - primary consumer
(Choice D) Phytoplankton - secondary consumer D Phytoplankton - secondary consumer

EssayEmpire

Food webs essay.

This Food Webs Essay example is published for educational and informational purposes only. If you need a custom essay or research paper on this topic, please use our writing services. EssayEmpire.com offers reliable custom essay writing services that can help you to receive high grades and impress your professors with the quality of each essay or research paper you hand in.

Food webs are depictions of the feeding relationships that exist among species within an ecosystem, indicating flows of energy and biomass between trophic levels. Although a food web is a more complex conception than a linear food chain, it remains a relatively static and binary depiction: species either interact or they don’t. Despite these limitations, food webs are useful conceptual tools, providing insights into the organization of communities and the interactions among different species within them.

Food webs are organized into trophic (or feeding) levels. Species are categorized as either producers or consumers. Producers or autotrophs , literally “self-feeders,” constitute the first trophic level-those species that synthesize their own food through processes of photosynthesis or chemosynthesis and includes most plants, algae, phytoplankton, and some species of bacteria. Photosynthetic species use carbon dioxide, water, and the light energy of the sun to produce sugar molecules as well as oxygen. Thus, these species are responsible for producing the relatively oxygen-rich atmosphere that exists on earth today. Chemosynthetic species produce carbohydrates via several different possible chemical pathways. Some use the chemical energy bound up in inorganic molecules (such as hydrogen sulfide), to produce carbohydrates from carbon (derived from carbon dioxide or methane), and oxygen.

Consumers, also termed heterotrophs, feed on other organisms, both living as well as dead. Those that eat the latter are decomposers or detritus eaters. All organisms eventually enter the detrital food web after they die and decompose or are consumed and their remains excreted. Herbivores, species that consume autotrophs, occupy the second trophic level. Carnivores are species that feed upon herbivores or other carnivores, with those that feed on herbivores occupying the third trophic level and those that feed on carnivores occupying higher trophic levels.

Food webs encompass a number of dynamic and interconnected food chains. A species may be an omnivore, consuming both producers and consumers, eat consumers from different trophic levels, and be preyed upon by a variety of species at different trophic levels, including fellow members of its own species. Some producers, such as Sundew and Venus Flytrap, supplement their primary production with the consumption of animals. There are also temporal dimensions to food webs. Predator-prey relationships may change both seasonally and through the life history of a species. For example, adult herring prey upon juvenile cod or eggs and may, in turn, be preyed upon by adult cod. In addition, some species, such as cod, cannibalize younger members of their own species.

Terrestrial and aquatic food webs are generally separated in space; however, some species facilitate cross-habitat fluxes of nutrients and detritus. Seabirds and some of the large vertebrate predators (humans, pinnepeds, polar bears) link marine and terrestrial food webs, transferring nutrients of marine origin to the land. Similarly, the migratory Pacific salmon grows to maturity in marine waters and returns to spawn and die in the freshwater environments where it was born, thereby connecting freshwater, marine, and terrestrial food webs. Salmon carcasses provide food for a wide variety of terrestrial animals, including bald eagles and bears, and are an important source of marine-origin nutrients in some freshwater streams.

The abundance of higher trophic level species is ultimately dependent on the productivity of autotrophs. A large proportion of the energy, as much as 90 percent, is lost in each trophic level transfer (as uneaten waste, feces, heat, consumer energy, and respiration, and so on). Because of this, there are limits on the absolute number of trophic levels found within an ecosystem. While the first and second laws of thermodynamics dictate that a substantial amount of bottom-up (nutrient driven) regulation of food webs exists, there is some evidence that top-down (predator dominated) control of food webs is or was important in some ecosystems.

Human Impact on Food Webs

There are few, if any, food webs, on earth that have not been significantly affected, or even dominated, by human activities. Humans impact food webs in two general ways: creating deficits by extracting organisms from ecosystems; and by producing subsidies, concentrating and transporting wastes from one system to another. Agricultural production is significant in both respects. Plant-based agricultural systems replace natural systems, substituting monocultures for greater species diversity and extracting most of the primary production from the system for human consumption. The application of pesticides disturbs food webs, creating secondary outbreaks and resurgences of the targeted populations. On the other hand, industrial animal husbandry concentrates manure and other wastes, which if not managed adequately, may pollute aquatic systems, overfertilizing them and ultimately leading to eutrophic conditions.

Commercial and recreational fishing and hunting constitute significant impacts to some ecosystems. Removing predators from ecosystems can lead to trophic cascades, changing food web structure and dynamics, perhaps irreversibly. Pollutants, too, move through the trophic levels of food webs as animals eat and in turn are eaten by others through processes of bioaccumulation and biomagnification, causing problems for organisms at high trophic levels, and especially in northern latitudes, including birds of prey, marine mammals, and babies fed human breast milk. Global climate change may pose the greatest challenge to the stability of food webs, altering growing seasons, changing the geographical ranges of species, creating unpredictability in predator-prey relationships and ultimately threatening many species with extinction.

Bibliography:

Kenneth T. Frank, Brian Petrie, Jae Choi, William C. Leggett, “Trophic Cascades in a Formerly Cod-Dominated Ecosystem,” Science (v.308/10 June, 2005);
Henry F. Howe and Lynn Westley, Ecological Relationships of Plants and Animals (Oxford University Press, 1988);
Daniel Pauly, Villy Christensen, Johanne Dalsgaard, Rainer Frose, and Francisco Torres Jr., “Fishing Down Marine Food Webs,” Science (v.279/6 February, 1998);
Stuart Pimm, Food Webs (Chapman and Hall, 1982);
Stuart L. Pimm, Food Webs, 2nd (University of Chicago Press, 2002);
Gary Polis, Mary E. Power, Gary R. Huxel, eds., Food Webs at the Landscape Level (University of Chicago Press, 2004).
How to Write an Essay
Essay Topics
Essay Examples

ORDER HIGH QUALITY CUSTOM PAPER

Special offer!

GET 10% OFF WITH 24START DISCOUNT CODE

An Overview of Food Chain

Table of Contents

What is a food chain
Types of food chain
Frequently Asked Questions

Food Chain: Introduction

A food chain explains which organism eats another organism in the environment. The food chain is a linear sequence of organisms where nutrients and energy is transferred from one organism to the other. This occurs when one organism consumes another organism. It begins with the producer organism, follows the chain and ends with the decomposer organism. After understanding the food chain, we realise how one organism is dependent upon another organism for survival.

Now, let’s look at the other aspects of a food chain, to get a better understanding.

What is a Food Chain?

A food chain refers to the order of events in an ecosystem, where one living organism eats another organism, and later that organism is consumed by another larger organism. The flow of nutrients and energy from one organism to another at different trophic levels forms a food chain.

The food chain also explains the feeding pattern or relationship between living organisms. Trophic level refers to the sequential stages in a food chain, starting with producers at the bottom, followed by primary, secondary and tertiary consumers. Every level in a food chain is known as a trophic level.

The food chain consists of four major parts, namely:

The Sun: The sun is the initial source of energy, which provides energy for everything on the planet.
Producers: The producers in a food chain include all autotrophs such as phytoplankton, cyanobacteria, algae, and green plants. This is the first stage in a food chain. The producers make up the first level of a food chain. The producers utilise the energy from the sun to make food. Producers are also known as autotrophs as they make their own food. Producers are any plant or other organisms that produce their own nutrients through photosynthesis.
Consumers: Consumers are all organisms that are dependent on plants or other organisms for food. This is the largest part of a food web, as it contains almost all living organisms. It includes herbivores which are animals that eat plants, carnivores which are animals that eat other animals, parasites that live on other organisms by harming them and lastly the scavengers, which are animals that eat dead animals’ carcasses.

Here, herbivores are known as primary consumers and carnivores are secondary consumers. The second trophic level includes organisms that eat producers. Therefore, primary consumers or herbivores are organisms in the second trophic level.

Decomposers: Decomposers are organisms that get energy from dead or waste organic material. This is the last stage in a food chain. Decomposers are an integral part of a food chain, as they convert organic waste materials into inorganic materials, which enriches the soil or land with nutrients.

Decomposers complete a life cycle. They help in recycling the nutrients as they provide nutrients to soil or oceans, that can be utilised by autotrophs or producers. Thus, starting a whole new food chain.

Several interconnected food chains form a food web. A food web is similar to a food chain but the food web is comparatively larger than a food chain. Occasionally, a single organism is consumed by many predators or it consumes several other organisms. Due to this, many trophic levels get interconnected. The food chain fails to showcase the flow of energy in the right way. But, the food web is able to show the proper representation of energy flow, as it displays the interactions between different organisms.

When there are more cross-interactions between different food chains, the food web gets more complex. This complexity in a food web leads to a more sustainable ecosystem.

Types of Food Chain

There are two types of food chains, namely the detritus food chain and the grazing food chain. Let’s look at them more closely:

Detritus food chain: The detritus food chain includes different species of organisms and plants like algae, bacteria, fungi, protozoa, mites, insects, worms and so on. The detritus food chain begins with dead organic material. The food energy passes into decomposers and detritivores, which are further eaten by smaller organisms like carnivores. Carnivores, like maggots, become a meal for bigger carnivores like frogs, snakes and so on. Primary consumers like fungi, bacteria, protozoans, and so on are detritivores which feed on detritus.
Grazing food chain: The grazing food chain is a type of food chain that starts with green plants, passes through herbivores and then to carnivores. In a grazing food chain, energy in the lowest trophic level is acquired from photosynthesis.

In this type of food chain, the first energy transfer is from plants to herbivores. This type of food chain depends on the flow of energy from autotrophs to herbivores. As autotrophs are the base for all ecosystems on Earth, the majority of ecosystems in the environment follow this kind of food chain.

Understanding food chains is vital, as they explain the intimate relationships in an ecosystem. A food chain shows us how every living organism is dependent on other organisms for survival. The food chain explains the path of energy flow inside an ecosystem.

Frequently Asked Questions on Food Chain

What are the first organisms in a food chain, what is the difference between the food chain and the food web.

A food chain follows a single path, where animals discover food. But a food web shows different paths, where plants and animals are connected. A food web comprises several food chains.

In a food chain, an organism eats a single item, whereas in a food web an organism consumes multiple items. In a food chain, there is a singular path for energy flow and in a food web, there are different paths for energy flow.

What role do humans play in a food chain?

What are animals called in a food chain, what do food chains end with.

To explore more information about food chains or other kinds of food chains, register with BYJU’S Biology .

Put your understanding of this concept to test by answering a few MCQs. Click ‘Start Quiz’ to begin!

Select the correct answer and click on the “Finish” button Check your score and answers at the end of the quiz

Visit BYJU’S for all Biology related queries and study materials

Your result is as below

Request OTP on Voice Call

Register with BYJU'S & Download Free PDFs

Social Justice
Environment
Health & Happiness
Get YES! Emails
Teacher Resources

Give A Gift Subscription
Teaching Sustainability
Teaching Social Justice
Teaching Respect & Empathy
Student Writing Lessons
Visual Learning Lessons
Tough Topics Discussion Guides
About the YES! for Teachers Program
Student Writing Contest

Follow YES! For Teachers

Six brilliant student essays on the power of food to spark social change.

Read winning essays from our fall 2018 “Feeding Ourselves, Feeding Our Revolutions,” student writing contest.

For the Fall 2018 student writing competition, “Feeding Ourselves, Feeding Our Revolutions,” we invited students to read the YES! Magazine article, “Cooking Stirs the Pot for Social Change,” by Korsha Wilson and respond to this writing prompt: If you were to host a potluck or dinner to discuss a challenge facing your community or country, what food would you cook? Whom would you invite? On what issue would you deliberate?

The Winners

From the hundreds of essays written, these six—on anti-Semitism, cultural identity, death row prisoners, coming out as transgender, climate change, and addiction—were chosen as essay winners. Be sure to read the literary gems and catchy titles that caught our eye.

Middle School Winner: India Brown High School Winner: Grace Williams University Winner: Lillia Borodkin Powerful Voice Winner: Paisley Regester Powerful Voice Winner: Emma Lingo Powerful Voice Winner: Hayden Wilson

Literary Gems Clever Titles

Middle School Winner: India Brown

A Feast for the Future

Close your eyes and imagine the not too distant future: The Statue of Liberty is up to her knees in water, the streets of lower Manhattan resemble the canals of Venice, and hurricanes arrive in the fall and stay until summer. Now, open your eyes and see the beautiful planet that we will destroy if we do not do something. Now is the time for change. Our future is in our control if we take actions, ranging from small steps, such as not using plastic straws, to large ones, such as reducing fossil fuel consumption and electing leaders who take the problem seriously.

Hosting a dinner party is an extraordinary way to publicize what is at stake. At my potluck, I would serve linguini with clams. The clams would be sautéed in white wine sauce. The pasta tossed with a light coat of butter and topped with freshly shredded parmesan. I choose this meal because it cannot be made if global warming’s patterns persist. Soon enough, the ocean will be too warm to cultivate clams, vineyards will be too sweltering to grow grapes, and wheat fields will dry out, leaving us without pasta.

I think that giving my guests a delicious meal and then breaking the news to them that its ingredients would be unattainable if Earth continues to get hotter is a creative strategy to initiate action. Plus, on the off chance the conversation gets drastically tense, pasta is a relatively difficult food to throw.

In YES! Magazine’s article, “Cooking Stirs the Pot for Social Change,” Korsha Wilson says “…beyond the narrow definition of what cooking is, you can see that cooking is and has always been an act of resistance.” I hope that my dish inspires people to be aware of what’s at stake with increasing greenhouse gas emissions and work toward creating a clean energy future.

My guest list for the potluck would include two groups of people: local farmers, who are directly and personally affected by rising temperatures, increased carbon dioxide, drought, and flooding, and people who either do not believe in human-caused climate change or don’t think it affects anyone. I would invite the farmers or farm owners because their jobs and crops are dependent on the weather. I hope that after hearing a farmer’s perspective, climate-deniers would be awakened by the truth and more receptive to the effort to reverse these catastrophic trends.

Earth is a beautiful planet that provides everything we’ll ever need, but because of our pattern of living—wasteful consumption, fossil fuel burning, and greenhouse gas emissions— our habitat is rapidly deteriorating. Whether you are a farmer, a long-shower-taking teenager, a worker in a pollution-producing factory, or a climate-denier, the future of humankind is in our hands. The choices we make and the actions we take will forever affect planet Earth.

India Brown is an eighth grader who lives in New York City with her parents and older brother. She enjoys spending time with her friends, walking her dog, Morty, playing volleyball and lacrosse, and swimming.

High School Winner: Grace Williams

Apple Pie Embrace

It’s 1:47 a.m. Thanksgiving smells fill the kitchen. The sweet aroma of sugar-covered apples and buttery dough swirls into my nostrils. Fragrant orange and rosemary permeate the room and every corner smells like a stroll past the open door of a French bakery. My eleven-year-old eyes water, red with drowsiness, and refocus on the oven timer counting down. Behind me, my mom and aunt chat to no end, fueled by the seemingly self-replenishable coffee pot stashed in the corner. Their hands work fast, mashing potatoes, crumbling cornbread, and covering finished dishes in a thin layer of plastic wrap. The most my tired body can do is sit slouched on the backless wooden footstool. I bask in the heat escaping under the oven door.

As a child, I enjoyed Thanksgiving and the preparations that came with it, but it seemed like more of a bridge between my birthday and Christmas than an actual holiday. Now, it’s a time of year I look forward to, dedicated to family, memories, and, most importantly, food. What I realized as I grew older was that my homemade Thanksgiving apple pie was more than its flaky crust and soft-fruit center. This American food symbolized a rite of passage, my Iraqi family’s ticket to assimilation.

Some argue that by adopting American customs like the apple pie, we lose our culture. I would argue that while American culture influences what my family eats and celebrates, it doesn’t define our character. In my family, we eat Iraqi dishes like mesta and tahini, but we also eat Cinnamon Toast Crunch for breakfast. This doesn’t mean we favor one culture over the other; instead, we create a beautiful blend of the two, adapting traditions to make them our own.

That said, my family has always been more than the “mashed potatoes and turkey” type.

My mom’s family immigrated to the United States in 1976. Upon their arrival, they encountered a deeply divided America. Racism thrived, even after the significant freedoms gained from the Civil Rights Movement a few years before. Here, my family was thrust into a completely unknown world: they didn’t speak the language, they didn’t dress normally, and dinners like riza maraka seemed strange in comparison to the Pop Tarts and Oreos lining grocery store shelves.

If I were to host a dinner party, it would be like Thanksgiving with my Chaldean family. The guests, my extended family, are a diverse people, distinct ingredients in a sweet potato casserole, coming together to create a delicious dish.

In her article “Cooking Stirs the Pot for Social Change,” Korsha Wilson writes, “each ingredient that we use, every technique, every spice tells a story about our access, our privilege, our heritage, and our culture.” Voices around the room will echo off the walls into the late hours of the night while the hot apple pie steams at the table’s center.

We will play concan on the blanketed floor and I’ll try to understand my Toto, who, after forty years, still speaks broken English. I’ll listen to my elders as they tell stories about growing up in Unionville, Michigan, a predominately white town where they always felt like outsiders, stories of racism that I have the privilege not to experience. While snacking on sunflower seeds and salted pistachios, we’ll talk about the news- how thousands of people across the country are protesting for justice among immigrants. No one protested to give my family a voice.

Our Thanksgiving food is more than just sustenance, it is a physical representation of my family ’s blended and ever-changing culture, even after 40 years in the United States. No matter how the food on our plates changes, it will always symbolize our sense of family—immediate and extended—and our unbreakable bond.

Grace Williams, a student at Kirkwood High School in Kirkwood, Missouri, enjoys playing tennis, baking, and spending time with her family. Grace also enjoys her time as a writing editor for her school’s yearbook, the Pioneer. In the future, Grace hopes to continue her travels abroad, as well as live near extended family along the sunny beaches of La Jolla, California.

University Winner: Lillia Borodkin

Nourishing Change After Tragedy Strikes

In the Jewish community, food is paramount. We often spend our holidays gathered around a table, sharing a meal and reveling in our people’s story. On other sacred days, we fast, focusing instead on reflection, atonement, and forgiveness.

As a child, I delighted in the comfort of matzo ball soup, the sweetness of hamantaschen, and the beauty of braided challah. But as I grew older and more knowledgeable about my faith, I learned that the origins of these foods are not rooted in joy, but in sacrifice.

The matzo of matzo balls was a necessity as the Jewish people did not have time for their bread to rise as they fled slavery in Egypt. The hamantaschen was an homage to the hat of Haman, the villain of the Purim story who plotted the Jewish people’s destruction. The unbaked portion of braided challah was tithed by commandment to the kohen or priests. Our food is an expression of our history, commemorating both our struggles and our triumphs.

As I write this, only days have passed since eleven Jews were killed at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. These people, intending only to pray and celebrate the Sabbath with their community, were murdered simply for being Jewish. This brutal event, in a temple and city much like my own, is a reminder that anti-Semitism still exists in this country. A reminder that hatred of Jews, of me, my family, and my community, is alive and flourishing in America today. The thought that a difference in religion would make some believe that others do not have the right to exist is frightening and sickening.

This is why, if given the chance, I would sit down the entire Jewish American community at one giant Shabbat table. I’d serve matzo ball soup, pass around loaves of challah, and do my best to offer comfort. We would take time to remember the beautiful souls lost to anti-Semitism this October and the countless others who have been victims of such hatred in the past. I would then ask that we channel all we are feeling—all the fear, confusion, and anger —into the fight.

As suggested in Korsha Wilson’s “Cooking Stirs the Pot for Social Change,” I would urge my guests to direct our passion for justice and the comfort and care provided by the food we are eating into resisting anti-Semitism and hatred of all kinds.

We must use the courage this sustenance provides to create change and honor our people’s suffering and strength. We must remind our neighbors, both Jewish and non-Jewish, that anti-Semitism is alive and well today. We must shout and scream and vote until our elected leaders take this threat to our community seriously. And, we must stand with, support, and listen to other communities that are subjected to vengeful hate today in the same way that many of these groups have supported us in the wake of this tragedy.

This terrible shooting is not the first of its kind, and if conflict and loathing are permitted to grow, I fear it will not be the last. While political change may help, the best way to target this hate is through smaller-scale actions in our own communities.

It is critical that we as a Jewish people take time to congregate and heal together, but it is equally necessary to include those outside the Jewish community to build a powerful crusade against hatred and bigotry. While convening with these individuals, we will work to end the dangerous “otherizing” that plagues our society and seek to understand that we share far more in common than we thought. As disagreements arise during our discussions, we will learn to respect and treat each other with the fairness we each desire. Together, we shall share the comfort, strength, and courage that traditional Jewish foods provide and use them to fuel our revolution.

We are not alone in the fight despite what extremists and anti-semites might like us to believe. So, like any Jew would do, I invite you to join me at the Shabbat table. First, we will eat. Then, we will get to work.

Lillia Borodkin is a senior at Kent State University majoring in Psychology with a concentration in Child Psychology. She plans to attend graduate school and become a school psychologist while continuing to pursue her passion for reading and writing. Outside of class, Lillia is involved in research in the psychology department and volunteers at the Women’s Center on campus.

Powerful Voice Winner: Paisley Regester

As a kid, I remember asking my friends jokingly, ”If you were stuck on a deserted island, what single item of food would you bring?” Some of my friends answered practically and said they’d bring water. Others answered comically and said they’d bring snacks like Flamin’ Hot Cheetos or a banana. However, most of my friends answered sentimentally and listed the foods that made them happy. This seems like fun and games, but what happens if the hypothetical changes? Imagine being asked, on the eve of your death, to choose the final meal you will ever eat. What food would you pick? Something practical? Comical? Sentimental?

This situation is the reality for the 2,747 American prisoners who are currently awaiting execution on death row. The grim ritual of “last meals,” when prisoners choose their final meal before execution, can reveal a lot about these individuals and what they valued throughout their lives.

It is difficult for us to imagine someone eating steak, lobster tail, apple pie, and vanilla ice cream one moment and being killed by state-approved lethal injection the next. The prisoner can only hope that the apple pie he requested tastes as good as his mom’s. Surprisingly, many people in prison decline the option to request a special last meal. We often think of food as something that keeps us alive, so is there really any point to eating if someone knows they are going to die?

“Controlling food is a means of controlling power,” said chef Sean Sherman in the YES! Magazine article “Cooking Stirs the Pot for Social Change,” by Korsha Wilson. There are deeper stories that lie behind the final meals of individuals on death row.

I want to bring awareness to the complex and often controversial conditions of this country’s criminal justice system and change the common perception of prisoners as inhuman. To accomplish this, I would host a potluck where I would recreate the last meals of prisoners sentenced to death.

In front of each plate, there would be a place card with the prisoner’s full name, the date of execution, and the method of execution. These meals could range from a plate of fried chicken, peas with butter, apple pie, and a Dr. Pepper, reminiscent of a Sunday dinner at Grandma’s, to a single olive.

Seeing these meals up close, meals that many may eat at their own table or feed to their own kids, would force attendees to face the reality of the death penalty. It will urge my guests to look at these individuals not just as prisoners, assigned a number and a death date, but as people, capable of love and rehabilitation.

This potluck is not only about realizing a prisoner’s humanity, but it is also about recognizing a flawed criminal justice system. Over the years, I have become skeptical of the American judicial system, especially when only seven states have judges who ethnically represent the people they serve. I was shocked when I found out that the officers who killed Michael Brown and Anthony Lamar Smith were exonerated for their actions. How could that be possible when so many teens and adults of color have spent years in prison, some even executed, for crimes they never committed?

Lawmakers, police officers, city officials, and young constituents, along with former prisoners and their families, would be invited to my potluck to start an honest conversation about the role and application of inequality, dehumanization, and racism in the death penalty. Food served at the potluck would represent the humanity of prisoners and push people to acknowledge that many inmates are victims of a racist and corrupt judicial system.

Recognizing these injustices is only the first step towards a more equitable society. The second step would be acting on these injustices to ensure that every voice is heard, even ones separated from us by prison walls. Let’s leave that for the next potluck, where I plan to serve humble pie.

Paisley Regester is a high school senior and devotes her life to activism, the arts, and adventure. Inspired by her experiences traveling abroad to Nicaragua, Mexico, and Scotland, Paisley hopes to someday write about the diverse people and places she has encountered and share her stories with the rest of the world.

Powerful Voice Winner: Emma Lingo

The Empty Seat

“If you aren’t sober, then I don’t want to see you on Christmas.”

Harsh words for my father to hear from his daughter but words he needed to hear. Words I needed him to understand and words he seemed to consider as he fiddled with his wine glass at the head of the table. Our guests, my grandma, and her neighbors remained resolutely silent. They were not about to defend my drunken father–or Charles as I call him–from my anger or my ultimatum.

This was the first dinner we had had together in a year. The last meal we shared ended with Charles slopping his drink all over my birthday presents and my mother explaining heroin addiction to me. So, I wasn’t surprised when Charles threw down some liquid valor before dinner in anticipation of my anger. If he wanted to be welcomed on Christmas, he needed to be sober—or he needed to be gone.

Countless dinners, holidays, and birthdays taught me that my demands for sobriety would fall on deaf ears. But not this time. Charles gave me a gift—a one of a kind, limited edition, absolutely awkward treat. One that I didn’t know how to deal with at all. Charles went home that night, smacked a bright red bow on my father, and hand-delivered him to me on Christmas morning.

He arrived for breakfast freshly showered and looking flustered. He would remember this day for once only because his daughter had scolded him into sobriety. Dad teetered between happiness and shame. Grandma distracted us from Dad’s presence by bringing the piping hot bacon and biscuits from the kitchen to the table, theatrically announcing their arrival. Although these foods were the alleged focus of the meal, the real spotlight shined on the unopened liquor cabinet in my grandma’s kitchen—the cabinet I know Charles was begging Dad to open.

I’ve isolated myself from Charles. My family has too. It means we don’t see Dad, but it’s the best way to avoid confrontation and heartache. Sometimes I find myself wondering what it would be like if we talked with him more or if he still lived nearby. Would he be less inclined to use? If all families with an addict tried to hang on to a relationship with the user, would there be fewer addicts in the world? Christmas breakfast with Dad was followed by Charles whisking him away to Colorado where pot had just been legalized. I haven’t talked to Dad since that Christmas.

As Korsha Wilson stated in her YES! Magazine article, “Cooking Stirs the Pot for Social Change,” “Sometimes what we don’t cook says more than what we do cook.” When it comes to addiction, what isn’t served is more important than what is. In quiet moments, I like to imagine a meal with my family–including Dad. He’d have a spot at the table in my little fantasy. No alcohol would push him out of his chair, the cigarettes would remain seated in his back pocket, and the stench of weed wouldn’t invade the dining room. Fruit salad and gumbo would fill the table—foods that Dad likes. We’d talk about trivial matters in life, like how school is going and what we watched last night on TV.

Dad would feel loved. We would connect. He would feel less alone. At the end of the night, he’d walk me to the door and promise to see me again soon. And I would believe him.

Emma Lingo spends her time working as an editor for her school paper, reading, and being vocal about social justice issues. Emma is active with many clubs such as Youth and Government, KHS Cares, and Peer Helpers. She hopes to be a journalist one day and to be able to continue helping out people by volunteering at local nonprofits.

Powerful Voice Winner: Hayden Wilson

Bittersweet Reunion

I close my eyes and envision a dinner of my wildest dreams. I would invite all of my relatives. Not just my sister who doesn’t ask how I am anymore. Not just my nephews who I’m told are too young to understand me. No, I would gather all of my aunts, uncles, and cousins to introduce them to the me they haven’t met.

For almost two years, I’ve gone by a different name that most of my family refuses to acknowledge. My aunt, a nun of 40 years, told me at a recent birthday dinner that she’d heard of my “nickname.” I didn’t want to start a fight, so I decided not to correct her. Even the ones who’ve adjusted to my name have yet to recognize the bigger issue.

Last year on Facebook, I announced to my friends and family that I am transgender. No one in my family has talked to me about it, but they have plenty to say to my parents. I feel as if this is about my parents more than me—that they’ve made some big parenting mistake. Maybe if I invited everyone to dinner and opened up a discussion, they would voice their concerns to me instead of my parents.

I would serve two different meals of comfort food to remind my family of our good times. For my dad’s family, I would cook heavily salted breakfast food, the kind my grandpa used to enjoy. He took all of his kids to IHOP every Sunday and ordered the least healthy option he could find, usually some combination of an overcooked omelet and a loaded Classic Burger. For my mom’s family, I would buy shakes and burgers from Hardee’s. In my grandma’s final weeks, she let aluminum tins of sympathy meals pile up on her dining table while she made my uncle take her to Hardee’s every day.

In her article on cooking and activism, food writer Korsha Wilson writes, “Everyone puts down their guard over a good meal, and in that space, change is possible.” Hopefully the same will apply to my guests.

When I first thought of this idea, my mind rushed to the endless negative possibilities. My nun-aunt and my two non-nun aunts who live like nuns would whip out their Bibles before I even finished my first sentence. My very liberal, state representative cousin would say how proud she is of the guy I’m becoming, but this would trigger my aunts to accuse her of corrupting my mind. My sister, who has never spoken to me about my genderidentity, would cover her children’s ears and rush them out of the house. My Great-Depression-raised grandparents would roll over in their graves, mumbling about how kids have it easy nowadays.

After mentally mapping out every imaginable terrible outcome this dinner could have, I realized a conversation is unavoidable if I want my family to accept who I am. I long to restore the deep connection I used to have with them. Though I often think these former relationships are out of reach, I won’t know until I try to repair them. For a year and a half, I’ve relied on Facebook and my parents to relay messages about my identity, but I need to tell my own story.

At first, I thought Korsha Wilson’s idea of a cooked meal leading the way to social change was too optimistic, but now I understand that I need to think more like her. Maybe, just maybe, my family could all gather around a table, enjoy some overpriced shakes, and be as close as we were when I was a little girl.

Hayden Wilson is a 17-year-old high school junior from Missouri. He loves writing, making music, and painting. He’s a part of his school’s writing club, as well as the GSA and a few service clubs.

Literary Gems

We received many outstanding essays for the Fall 2018 Writing Competition. Though not every participant can win the contest, we’d like to share some excerpts that caught our eye.

Thinking of the main staple of the dish—potatoes, the starchy vegetable that provides sustenance for people around the globe. The onion, the layers of sorrow and joy—a base for this dish served during the holidays. The oil, symbolic of hope and perseverance. All of these elements come together to form this delicious oval pancake permeating with possibilities. I wonder about future possibilities as I flip the latkes.

—Nikki Markman, University of San Francisco, San Francisco, California

The egg is a treasure. It is a fragile heart of gold that once broken, flows over the blemishless surface of the egg white in dandelion colored streams, like ribbon unraveling from its spool.

—Kaylin Ku, West Windsor-Plainsboro High School South, Princeton Junction, New Jersey

If I were to bring one food to a potluck to create social change by addressing anti-Semitism, I would bring gefilte fish because it is different from other fish, just like the Jews are different from other people. It looks more like a matzo ball than fish, smells extraordinarily fishy, and tastes like sweet brine with the consistency of a crab cake.

—Noah Glassman, Ethical Culture Fieldston School, Bronx, New York

I would not only be serving them something to digest, I would serve them a one-of-a-kind taste of the past, a taste of fear that is felt in the souls of those whose home and land were taken away, a taste of ancestral power that still lives upon us, and a taste of the voices that want to be heard and that want the suffering of the Natives to end.

—Citlalic Anima Guevara, Wichita North High School, Wichita, Kansas

It’s the one thing that your parents make sure you have because they didn’t. Food is what your mother gives you as she lies, telling you she already ate. It’s something not everybody is fortunate to have and it’s also what we throw away without hesitation. Food is a blessing to me, but what is it to you?

—Mohamed Omar, Kirkwood High School, Kirkwood, Missouri

Filleted and fried humphead wrasse, mangrove crab with coconut milk, pounded taro, a whole roast pig, and caramelized nuts—cuisines that will not be simplified to just “food.” Because what we eat is the diligence and pride of our people—a culture that has survived and continues to thrive.

—Mayumi Remengesau, University of San Francisco, San Francisco, California

Some people automatically think I’m kosher or ask me to say prayers in Hebrew. However, guess what? I don’t know many prayers and I eat bacon.

—Hannah Reing, Ethical Culture Fieldston School, The Bronx, New York

Everything was placed before me. Rolling up my sleeves I started cracking eggs, mixing flour, and sampling some chocolate chips, because you can never be too sure. Three separate bowls. All different sizes. Carefully, I tipped the smallest, and the medium-sized bowls into the biggest. Next, I plugged in my hand-held mixer and flicked on the switch. The beaters whirl to life. I lowered it into the bowl and witnessed the creation of something magnificent. Cookie dough.

—Cassandra Amaya, Owen Goodnight Middle School, San Marcos, Texas

Biscuits and bisexuality are both things that are in my life…My grandmother’s biscuits are the best: the good old classic Southern biscuits, crunchy on the outside, fluffy on the inside. Except it is mostly Southern people who don’t accept me.

—Jaden Huckaby, Arbor Montessori, Decatur, Georgia

We zest the bright yellow lemons and the peels of flavor fall lightly into the batter. To make frosting, we keep adding more and more powdered sugar until it looks like fluffy clouds with raspberry seed rain.

—Jane Minus, Ethical Culture Fieldston School, Bronx, New York

Tamales for my grandma, I can still remember her skillfully spreading the perfect layer of masa on every corn husk, looking at me pitifully as my young hands fumbled with the corn wrapper, always too thick or too thin.

—Brenna Eliaz, San Marcos High School, San Marcos, Texas

Just like fry bread, MRE’s (Meals Ready to Eat) remind New Orleanians and others affected by disasters of the devastation throughout our city and the little amount of help we got afterward.

—Madeline Johnson, Spring Hill College, Mobile, Alabama

I would bring cream corn and buckeyes and have a big debate on whether marijuana should be illegal or not.

—Lillian Martinez, Miller Middle School, San Marcos, Texas

We would finish the meal off with a delicious apple strudel, topped with schlag, schlag, schlag, more schlag, and a cherry, and finally…more schlag (in case you were wondering, schlag is like whipped cream, but 10 times better because it is heavier and sweeter).

—Morgan Sheehan, Ethical Culture Fieldston School, Bronx, New York

Clever Titles

This year we decided to do something different. We were so impressed by the number of catchy titles that we decided to feature some of our favorites.

“Eat Like a Baby: Why Shame Has No Place at a Baby’s Dinner Plate”

—Tate Miller, Wichita North High School, Wichita, Kansas

“The Cheese in Between”

—Jedd Horowitz, Ethical Culture Fieldston School, Bronx, New York

“Harvey, Michael, Florence or Katrina? Invite Them All Because Now We Are Prepared”

—Molly Mendoza, Spring Hill College, Mobile, Alabama

“Neglecting Our Children: From Broccoli to Bullets”

—Kylie Rollings, Kirkwood High School, Kirkwood, Missouri

“The Lasagna of Life”

—Max Williams, Wichita North High School, Wichita, Kansas

“Yum, Yum, Carbon Dioxide In Our Lungs”

—Melanie Eickmeyer, Kirkwood High School, Kirkwood, Missouri

“My Potluck, My Choice”

—Francesca Grossberg, Ethical Culture Fieldston School, Bronx, New York

“Trumping with Tacos”

—Maya Goncalves, Lincoln Middle School, Ypsilanti, Michigan

“Quiche and Climate Change”

—Bernie Waldman, Ethical Culture Fieldston School, Bronx, New York

“Biscuits and Bisexuality”

“W(health)”

—Miles Oshan, San Marcos High School, San Marcos, Texas

“Bubula, Come Eat!”

—Jordan Fienberg, Ethical Culture Fieldston School, Bronx, New York

Get Stories of Solutions to Share with Your Classroom

Teachers save 50% on YES! Magazine.

Inspiration in Your Inbox

Get the free daily newsletter from YES! Magazine: Stories of people creating a better world to inspire you and your students.

Food Essay for Students and Children

500+ words essay on food.

Food is the basic human need to stay alive. Moreover, it is the need of every living organism . Therefore it is important that we should not waste food. Our world consists of different types of cultures. These cultures have varieties of dishes of food in them.

Thus, all the dishes have different taste. Furthermore, our nature provides us a variety of food. From fruits to vegetables, from Dairy food to seafood everything is available. Different countries have their own specialty of dishes. Therefore some of them are below:

World-famous Cuisines

Italian Cuisines – Italian cuisines is one of the most popular cuisines around the world. Moreover, it is widely available in our India too. Dishes like pizza, pasta, and lasagna own a special place in the hearts’ of people.

Furthermore, restaurants like Dominos and Pizza hut are available all over the country. People of every age love the taste of these Italian dishes. Also, Italian dishes are famous for their’ cheese filling. Every dish is load with cheese. Which enhances the taste of these Italian dishes.

Indian cuisine – Indian cuisine is always filled with a lot of herbs and spices. Furthermore, the specialty of Indian dishes is, it is always filled with curries. Whether veg or non-veg the dishes are in curry form. Moreover, Indian cuisine has so many varieties of food that has further branches. The Branch consists of Mughal cuisine which is mostly of non-vegetarian dishes. Also, almost every Indian love Muglia dishes.

Chinese Cuisine – Chinese cuisine in India is also very popular. There are many Chinese theme-based restaurants here. Moreover, in these restaurants Chinese are preferable chefs because they can only give the perfect Chinese blend. Chinese cuisines have a wide variety of dishes. Some of them are Chinese noodles, fried rice, Dumplings, etc. Dumplings have a different name here. They go by the name of momos in India and people love the taste of it.

These were some of the favorites of Indian people. Moreover, these are in almost every part of the city. You can find it anywhere, whether be it in 5-star restaurants or at the side of the street as street foods.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Importance of Food in Our Life

We cannot deny the importance of food in our lives. As it is the basic need to survive. Yet some people waste not thinking that there are still some people that do not get any of it. We should always be careful while taking a meal on our plates.

In other words, we should take only that much that our stomach can allow. Or else there will be wasting of food . In India there are many people living in slums, they do not have proper shelter. Moreover, they are not able to have even a one-time meal. They starve for days and are always in a state of sickness.

Many children are there on roads who are laboring to get a daily meal. After seeing conditions like these people should not dare to waste food. Moreover, we should always provide food to the needy ones as much as we can.

Q1. Name any two different types of cuisines available in India.

A1. The two different types of cuisines available in India are Italian and Chinese cuisine. These are famous apart from Indian cuisine.

Q2. How can we not waste food?

A2. You cannot waste food by taking only a sufficient amount of it. Moreover, people should seal pack the leftover food and give it to the beggars. So that they can at least stay healthy and not starve.

Customize your course in 30 seconds

Which class are you in.

Travelling Essay
Picnic Essay
Our Country Essay
My Parents Essay
Essay on Favourite Personality
Essay on Memorable Day of My Life
Essay on Knowledge is Power
Essay on Gurpurab
Essay on My Favourite Season
Essay on Types of Sports

Download the App

Future Students
Parents and Families

Rhody Today

Long-term ocean sampling in narragansett bay reveals plummeting plankton levels: impact uncertain for local food web.

Long-term declines, half of prior numbers, revealed in new 60-year study

KINGSTON, R.I. – May 15, 2024 – URI researchers estimate that in Narragansett Bay, the level of tiny plantlike creatures called phytoplankton has dropped by half in the last half century, based on new analysis of a long-term time series study of the bay.

That’s what a new paper published by the University of Rhode Island’s Graduate School of Oceanography (GSO) reports — news, recently uncovered, that is both surprising and concerning.

Analyzing the full time series of the bay, the research team found that phytoplankton biomass in Narragansett Bay declined by a stunning 49% from 1968 to 2019. The intensity of the winter-spring bloom, which starts the annual cycle of productivity in the Bay, decreased over time and is also occurring earlier each year.

URI’s new study in PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) shares information from one of the longest plankton time series in the world. The subject of study is not only a destination for generations of Rhode Islanders and tourists but a fruitful site of research for oceanographers at URI’s Narragansett Bay Campus.

“A lot of people live, work and play on the shores of Narragansett Bay,” Oceanography Professor Tatiana Rynearson says, providing key goods and services for the nearly 2 million people who inhabit its watershed. Even in the dense Northeast, Narragansett Bay stands out as a well-used body of water. The bay sits between regions of cold winters and warm summers, Arctic waters to the north and warm waters to the south, existing at a bit of a scientific sweet spot that offers researchers a dynamic environment to study.

At the Bay Campus, Rynearson and colleagues have been looking closely at changes to phytoplankton in the bay. Their new study represents the first such study of Narragansett Bay, offering a baseline look at changes occurring there since 1957.

Much has changed around the bay since then, and in it, too.

Rynearson has directed the Narragansett Bay Long-Term Plankton Time Series since 2008. Years of accumulated data existed on paper in a locked storage room. Digitizing those files (pre-1997) was a longstanding goal of hers, and so she and her team transferred those data snapshots of Narragansett Bay from the analog 1960s through the ’90s, eventually gaining a complete dataset of long-term information on the bay.

“There’s so much value in this one-of-a-kind data, which had been sitting in holding over the decades,” she says. “Now we have all this beautiful data in a form we can better access and share with the world.”

Rynearson credits lead author and former URI postdoctoral fellow Patricia Thibodeau (now at the University of New England) with bringing the data backlog into the digital age, a painstaking process that took almost a year. Once fully digitized, it was time to assess the results, with collaborator Gavino Puggioni in URI’s Department of Computer Science and Statistics.

They shared their results with David Borkman (Ph.D. ’02) at Rhode Island’s Department of Environmental Management, who collected study samples when he was a student and later post-doc at URI. Borkman is now the principal environmental scientist in shellfish water quality at DEM, conducting water analysis for the state.

“The plankton time series is extremely valuable,” he says.

The time series provides useful context on phytoplankton abundance and community composition during a period of climate change and nutrient change in Narragansett Bay. Borkman notes that this long-term phytoplankton information is especially useful when unusual events occur, like the 1985 ‘brown tide’, occasional summer ‘rust tides’, and the 2016-2017 bloom of Pseudo-nitzschia, a type of phytoplankton that can cause harmful algal blooms (HABs). The weekly observations of bay phytoplankton are thus an important component of Rhode Island’s efforts to monitor HABs.

Phytoplankton plummeting — and blooming earlier

‘Primary producers’ in the marine environment, phytoplankton are small in size but big in impact, fueling local food webs, indicating environmental quality and pointing toward climate trends. The local declines mirror those observed elsewhere in the Gulf of Maine, Australian coast and Black Sea.

One possible silver lining is that variability in phytoplankton biomass may point to resilience in the face of climate change. Researchers hope to examine such trends further, highlighting the need to sustain such marine time series in coming decades.

Rynearson is looking forward to sharing the new research with the scientific community, as well as the public; she describes the impact and importance of phytoplankton by asking a visitor to picture the microscopic organisms like grass on the African savannah. All the animals rely on the grass, she says. Similarly, phytoplankton are key to the survival of all of the organisms in the bay.

“Phytoplankton are a key food source,” she says, “so this decrease we’re seeing is important.”

The winter-spring phytoplankton bloom kicks it all off early in the year, the start of the annual feeding cycle in the bay. The bloom provides nutrients to many animals, including those coming out of hibernation. Now researchers can also see that the bloom is happening five days earlier every decade.

“This event has a big impact,” Rynearson says, “and its timing is important; changes in the ecosystem are very delicate. Everything acts in concert.”

As the timing launches a process of energy transfer through the food web, what could a potential mismatch mean?

Rynearson isn’t sure, noting that the first step is to understand what’s happening at the base of the food web; next will be to see how it tracks and what’s causing these changes.

The time series’ weekly data results are communicated to GSO and beyond, provided free to two dozen partners across the state at DEM, the Narragansett Bay Commission, nonprofit agencies and interested academic and government partners.

“This data is of interest to time series studies all over the world,” Rynearson says. “And now that we have information on the status of the phytoplankton at the bottom of the food web, we can set goals for collecting more information across the entire food web, while there is time to influence it.”

“People at URI are aware of the value of time series studies and the importance of funding them over time,” Rynearson says. “There’s so much we can do with this data. GSO’s commitment to the time series is invaluable for many reasons, including URI student training.”

And the time series continues each Monday morning, at 7 a.m., when the R/V Cap’n Bert heads out. A 53-foot stern trawler operated by URI’s Department of Fisheries, Animal and Veterinary Sciences, the Cap’n Bert sails out of Wickford Harbor weekly to capture the newest data point on the bay.

“We want this data from the bay to help tell the story of Narragansett Bay and be read by people in and around Rhode Island, the bay and beyond,” Rynearson says. “We want to get people interested. With more people knowledgeable, it’s possible to make a difference.”

This research is supported by the National Science Foundation and Rhode Island Sea Grant. To learn more, visit web.uri.edu/gso/research/plankton/.

‘Nothing is untouched’: DDT found in deep-sea fish raises troubling concerns for food web

Three specimen jars each hold a tiny fish.

Show more sharing options
Copy Link URL Copied!

For several years now, one question has held the key to understanding just how much we should worry about the hundreds of tons of DDT that had been dumped off the coast of Los Angeles:

How, exactly, has this decades-old pesticide — a toxic chemical spread across the seafloor 3,000 feet underwater — continued to reenter the food web?

Now, in a highly anticipated study , researchers have identified tiny zooplankton and mid-to-deep-water fish as potential links between the contaminated sediment and the greater ecosystem.

For the first time, chemical analyses confirmed that these deep-sea organisms are contaminated by numerous DDT-related compounds that match similar chemical patterns found on the seafloor and animals higher up on the food chain.

“This DDT pollution happened several decades ago, there’s no new source, it’s been banned ... but this old source is still polluting the deep-ocean biota, which is really alarming,” said Eunha Hoh, whose lab at San Diego State’s School of Public Health led the study’s chemical analysis. “We’re not talking about zooplankton collected in 1960 — we’re talking about zooplankton collected now , in the deep ocean, that is still polluted with DDT.”

Aggressive and impactful reporting on climate change, the environment, health and science.

Hoh’s team had already found significant amounts of DDT-related chemicals in present-day dolphins and coastal-feeding condors (and a recent study by another team even connected an aggressive cancer in sea lions to DDT). But even though DDT has clearly been accumulating at the top of the food chain, how the DDT reached these animals has been somewhat of a mystery. Key questions remain on whether it has been coming from more shallow sources (such as the Palos Verdes Shelf Superfund site , where DDT had been discharged for years via the sewer system), or from the deep-sea sediment itself.

“It really [hits home] this concept that nothing is untouched,” said Lihini Aluwihare, a chemical oceanographer whose lab at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography helped piece together the many multi-disciplinary aspects to the study. “Establishing the current distribution of DDT contamination in deep-sea food webs lays the groundwork for thinking about whether those contaminants are also moving up through deep-ocean food webs into species that might be consumed by people.”

A woman in a white lab coat stands beside scientific equipment.

The study, published Monday in Environmental Science & Technology Letters, is one of many research efforts sparked by a 2020 Los Angeles Times report that detailed the little-known history of ocean dumping off the Southern California coast — and how the nation’s largest manufacturer of DDT had for years disposed of its waste at sea.

One team of scientists, in an attempt to map and scan the seafloor for DDT-related waste, discovered instead a multitude of discarded military explosives from the World War II era. Another team unearthed records showing that barrels of radioactive waste had also been dumped at sea.

And during an urgent investigation into old and forgotten records, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency discovered that from the 1930s to the early 1970s, 13 other areas off the Southern California coast had also been approved for all manner of dumping — including the disposal of various refinery byproducts and 3 million metric tons of petroleum waste.

Image of a discarded, leaking barrel sitting 3,000 feet deep on the ocean floor near Santa Catalina Island.

Climate & Environment

History of DDT ocean dumping off L.A. coast even worse than expected, EPA finds

Barrels of DDT waste — along with other chemicals — were likely poured directly into the ocean near Catalina Island, according to federal regulators.

Aug. 4, 2022

As for the DDT, which is short for dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, scientists have so far confirmed that much of what’s still sitting on the seafloor remains in its most potent form and is buried barely 6 centimeters deep — raising concerns about just how easily it could remobilize and spread by reentering the food web.

In a world dominated with concerns over microplastics and “forever chemicals ,” DDT persists as an unresolved problem — long after the pesticide was banned in 1972 following Rachel Carson’s book “Silent Spring.”

Here’s what we know about the legacy of DDT dumping off L.A.’s coast

DDT was banned 50 years ago, but its toxic legacy continues to affect the California marine ecosystem and threaten various animal species.

May 6, 2024

With this latest study, researchers sought to demonstrate how the chemical is still likely making its way up from the deep seafloor by coming into contact with zooplankton, which get eaten by deep-sea fish, which then swim around and get eaten by midwater fish and marine mammals higher and higher up the food chain.

Hoh joined forces with Aluwihare’s lab at Scripps, where a microbiology team also provided sediment analysis and a deep-sea biologist helped determine which organisms to sample — and where across Southern California to collect them.

In addition to zooplankton, which are a window into the base of the food chain, one particular type of fish, myctophids, proved to be key.

A scientist with blue gloves prepares a tiny fish for analysis.

Also known as lanternfish, myctophids are tiny, unassuming fish that travel remarkable distances from the deep ocean all the way to the surface. (One of the most abundant and widespread fish in the world, myctophids make up roughly 65% of all deep-sea biomass on Earth.) The researchers methodically ground up each fish sample, extracted the lipid (DDT tends to be stored in fat), and assessed the contamination with an unprecedented level of scrutiny.

The findings have been sobering: Wherever they looked, they found DDT. Even the “control” samples they tried to collect — as a way to compare what a normal fish sample farther away from the known dumping area might look like — ended up riddled with DDT.

“This is one of the missing pieces that we’ve been waiting to see,” said David Valentine, who has been leading the broader research community on this issue since his team at UC Santa Barbara first shed light on the startling amounts of DDT still spread across the seafloor. “We know there’s a ton of stuff down there ... but seeing these compounds in deep-dwelling organisms really points to a link.”

A corroded, partially buried steel drum rises from the ocean seafloor.

Valentine, who was not involved in the study, noted a number of interesting new clues.

One key to tracking the legacy of DDT through the marine ecosystem is identifying and then comparing the patterns of every chemical that appear in various animals — a technique called “non-targeted analysis.” That can help fingerprint where all the DDT is coming from, and how it’s moving and accumulating at different levels of the food chain.

Monitoring programs typically use a targeted approach — searching for only four to eight specific DDT compounds. But by using non-targeted methods, scientists in this new study were able to identify an entire suite of DDT-related chemicals, including a particularly suspicious compound, TCPM, that poses unknown threats to the ecosystem. These currently unmonitored chemicals were also present in the blubber of dolphin carcasses that had washed ashore, as well as in the sediment collected near the known dumping area.

“This gives us a much more realistic view of what the potential ecological and human health impacts can be,” said Mark Gold, an environmental scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council. The study, he says, lays bare how the traditional approach to testing and monitoring for only a few DDT compounds “grossly underestimates the concentrations of DDT in the sediment and in organisms.”

Gold, who was not affiliated with the study but has spent more than 30 years pushing for DDT cleanup along the coast, said much more work needs to be done on all fronts to truly reckon with the chemical’s legacy in Southern California. In addition to the DDT spread across the deep sea and the Palos Verdes Shelf , the mouth of the Dominguez Channel has also been identified for decades as a hot spot.

The road ahead is long. Twenty-four members of Congress, led by U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) and Rep. Salud Carbajal (D-Santa Barbara), recently urged the Biden administration to dedicate long-term funding to both studying and remediating the issue. Officials at the EPA, meanwhile, have been considering their next steps in collaboration with a number of state and federal agencies.

Academic research groups, including the ones in San Diego and the one led by Valentine at UC Santa Barbara, are also continuing to seek answers. Chief among them are determining the boundary of the dump site, mapping the spread of the pollution and tracking its migration across the food web.

For environmental chemists Margaret Stack, the first author of the latest study, and fellow author Raymmah Garcia, a doctoral candidate at Scripps, seeing once-popular pesticides such as DDT continue to move so pervasively through the ecosystem makes them wonder about all the other chemicals still being used today without question — chemicals that might also come back to haunt us many decades from now.

“I often find myself feeling frustrated when looking at this data and then seeing that we’re still using chemicals without testing them, without understanding their impacts,” said Stack, a research specialist at San Diego State’s School of Public Health. “It feels like we’re not doing anything differently.”

“How many more times,” she said, “are we going to go through the same story?”

Toward a more sustainable California

Get Boiling Point, our newsletter exploring climate change, energy and the environment, and become part of the conversation — and the solution.

You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.

What are the blue blobs washing up on SoCal beaches? Welcome to Velella velella Valhalla

May 3, 2024

Huntington Beach, CA - March 08: Andrew Christenson, who got oil stuck to his feet, and his dog Lola check out tar balls at the high tide line at Huntington Dog Beach in Huntington Beach Friday, March 8, 2024. Roughly 2.5-mile-long oil slick was spotted today off the coast of Huntington Beach, but its source remained unclear. According to the Coast Guard, the slick is about 1.5 miles off the coast. ``Aerial surveys are planned to assess the size and potential impacts,'' Coast Guard officials said on social media. Photo taken in Huntington Beach Friday, March 8, 2024. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Did O.C. oil spill come from natural seepage or drilling? Cause under investigation

March 11, 2024

Christiane Keyhani, program coordinator of Hui O Ka Wai Ola, fills up the bucket to test water quality at the Mala Wharf on Friday, Feb. 23, 2024, in Lahaina, Hawaii. (AP Photo/Mengshin Lin)

Coral reefs are Hawaii’s ‘rainforests of the sea.’ What happened to them after Lahaina wildfire?

March 3, 2024

Rosanna Xia is an environment reporter for the Los Angeles Times, where she specializes in stories about the coast and ocean. She was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2020 for explanatory reporting, and her first book, “ California Against the Sea ,” examines the future of our vanishing coastline in the face of rising water.

More From the Los Angeles Times

Emigrant Gap, CA - April 17: The 40 Acre League's Jade Stevens sits for a portrait on Putt Lake where the league recently purchased 650 acres of with trails leading into to Tahoe National Forest that will be adapted for recreation and minority-owned small outdoor ventures on Wednesday, April 17, 2024 in Emigrant Gap, CA. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

California’s first Black land trust fights climate change, makes the outdoors more inclusive

May 19, 2024

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, under fire for shooting dog, describes making ‘hard decisions’ at California GOP gathering

May 18, 2024

San Diego, California-Amy Baack teaches a free yoga class at Sunset Cliffs National Park in San Diego, California (Courtesy of Amy Baack)

Namaste away: Rangers bar yoga classes at cliffside San Diego park

An active drilling oil field on Rockwood St. is located near Alliance Ted K. Tajima High School in Los Angeles.

California’s effort to plug abandoned, chemical-spewing oil wells gets $35-million boost

Share full article

Supported by

Guest Essay

A Year on Ozempic Taught Me We’re Thinking About Obesity All Wrong

A photo illustration of junk food — potato chips, cheesecake and bacon — spiraling into a black background.

By Johann Hari

Mr. Hari is a British journalist and the author of “Magic Pill: The Extraordinary Benefits — and Disturbing Risks — of the New Weight Loss Drugs.”

Ever since I was a teenager, I have dreamed of shedding a lot of weight. So when I shrank from 203 pounds to 161 in a year, I was baffled by my feelings. I was taking Ozempic, and I was haunted by the sense that I was cheating and doing something immoral.

I’m not the only one. In the United States (where I now split my time), over 70 percent of people are overweight or obese, and according to one poll, 47 percent of respondents said they were willing to pay to take the new weight-loss drugs. It’s not hard to see why. They cause users to lose an average of 10 to 20 percent of their body weight, and clinical trials suggest that the next generation of drugs (probably available soon) leads to a 24 percent loss, on average. Yet as more and more people take drugs like Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjaro, we get more confused as a culture, bombarding anyone in the public eye who takes them with brutal shaming.

This is happening because we are trapped in a set of old stories about what obesity is and the morally acceptable ways to overcome it. But the fact that so many of us are turning to the new weight-loss drugs can be an opportunity to find a way out of that trap of shame and stigma — and to a more truthful story.

In my lifetime, obesity has exploded, from being rare to almost being the norm. I was born in 1979, and by the time I was 21, obesity rates in the United States had more than doubled . They have skyrocketed since. The obvious question is, why? And how do these new weight-loss drugs work? The answer to both lies in one word: satiety. It’s a concept that we don’t use much in everyday life but that we’ve all experienced at some point. It describes the sensation of having had enough and not wanting any more.

The primary reason we have gained weight at a pace unprecedented in human history is that our diets have radically changed in ways that have deeply undermined our ability to feel sated. My father grew up in a village in the Swiss mountains, where he ate fresh, whole foods that had been cooked from scratch and prepared on the day they were eaten. But in the 30 years between his childhood and mine, in the suburbs of London, the nature of food transformed across the Western world. He was horrified to see that almost everything I ate was reheated and heavily processed. The evidence is clear that the kind of food my father grew up eating quickly makes you feel full. But the kind of food I grew up eating, much of which is made in factories, often with artificial chemicals, left me feeling empty and as if I had a hole in my stomach. In a recent study of what American children eat, ultraprocessed food was found to make up 67 percent of their daily diet. This kind of food makes you want to eat more and more. Satiety comes late, if at all.

One scientific experiment — which I have nicknamed Cheesecake Park — seemed to me to crystallize this effect. Paul Kenny, a neuroscientist at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, grew up in Ireland. After he moved in 2000 to the United States, when he was in his 20s, he gained 30 pounds in two years. He began to wonder if the American diet has some kind of strange effect on our brains and our cravings, so he designed an experiment to test it. He and his colleague Paul Johnson raised a group of rats in a cage and gave them an abundant supply of healthy, balanced rat chow made out of the kind of food rats had been eating for a very long time. The rats would eat it when they were hungry, and then they seemed to feel sated and stopped. They did not become fat.

But then Dr. Kenny and his colleague exposed the rats to an American diet: fried bacon, Snickers bars, cheesecake and other treats. They went crazy for it. The rats would hurl themselves into the cheesecake, gorge themselves and emerge with their faces and whiskers totally slicked with it. They quickly lost almost all interest in the healthy food, and the restraint they used to show around healthy food disappeared. Within six weeks, their obesity rates soared.

After this change, Dr. Kenny and his colleague tweaked the experiment again (in a way that seems cruel to me, a former KFC addict). They took all the processed food away and gave the rats their old healthy diet. Dr. Kenny was confident that they would eat more of it, proving that processed food had expanded their appetites. But something stranger happened. It was as though the rats no longer recognized healthy food as food at all, and they barely ate it. Only when they were starving did they reluctantly start to consume it again.

Though Dr. Kenny’s study was in rats, we can see forms of this behavior everywhere. We are all living in Cheesecake Park — and the satiety-stealing effect of industrially assembled food is evidently what has created the need for these medications. Drugs like Ozempic work precisely by making us feel full. Carel le Roux, a scientist whose research was important to the development of these drugs, says they boost what he and others once called “satiety hormones.”

Once you understand this context, it becomes clear that processed and ultraprocessed food create a raging hole of hunger, and these treatments can repair that hole. Michael Lowe, a professor of psychology at Drexel University who has studied hunger for 40 years, told me the drugs are “an artificial solution to an artificial problem.”

Yet we have reacted to this crisis largely caused by the food industry as if it were caused only by individual moral dereliction. I felt like a failure for being fat and was furious with myself for it. Why do we turn our anger inward and not outward at the main cause of the crisis? And by extension, why do we seek to shame people taking Ozempic but not those who, say, take drugs to lower their blood pressure?

The answer, I think, lies in two very old notions. The first is the belief that obesity is a sin. When Pope Gregory I laid out the seven deadly sins in the sixth century, one of them was gluttony, usually illustrated with grotesque-seeming images of overweight people. Sin requires punishment before you can get to redemption. Think about the competition show “The Biggest Loser,” on which obese people starve and perform extreme forms of exercise in visible agony in order to demonstrate their repentance.

The second idea is that we are all in a competition when it comes to weight. Ours is a society full of people fighting against the forces in our food that are making us fatter. It is often painful to do this: You have to tolerate hunger or engage in extreme forms of exercise. It feels like a contest in which each thin person creates additional pressure on others to do the same. Looked at in this way, people on Ozempic can resemble athletes like the cyclist Lance Armstrong who used performance-enhancing drugs. Those who manage their weight without drugs might think, “I worked hard for this, and you get it for as little as a weekly jab?”

We can’t find our way to a sane, nontoxic conversation about obesity or Ozempic until we bring these rarely spoken thoughts into the open and reckon with them. You’re not a sinner for gaining weight. You’re a typical product of a dysfunctional environment that makes it very hard to feel full. If you are angry about these drugs, remember the competition isn’t between you and your neighbor who’s on weight-loss drugs. It’s between you and a food industry constantly designing new ways to undermine your satiety. If anyone is the cheat here, it’s that industry. We should be united in a struggle against it and its products, not against desperate people trying to find a way out of this trap.

There are extraordinary benefits as well as disturbing risks associated with weight-loss drugs. Reducing or reversing obesity hugely boosts health, on average: We know from years of studying bariatric surgery that it slashes the risks of cancer, heart disease and diabetes-related death. Early indications are that the new anti-obesity drugs are moving people in a similar radically healthier direction, massively reducing the risk of heart attack or stroke. But these drugs may increase the risk for thyroid cancer. I am worried they diminish muscle mass and fear they may supercharge eating disorders. This is a complex picture in which the evidence has to be weighed very carefully.

But we can’t do that if we remain lost in stories inherited from premodern popes or in a senseless competition that leaves us all, in the end, losers. Do we want these weight loss drugs to be another opportunity to tear one another down? Or do we want to realize that the food industry has profoundly altered the appetites of us all — leaving us trapped in the same cage, scrambling to find a way out?

Johann Hari is a British journalist and the author of “Magic Pill: The Extraordinary Benefits — and Disturbing Risks — of the New Weight Loss Drugs,” among other books.

Source photographs by seamartini, The Washington Post, and Zana Munteanu via Getty Images.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips . And here’s our email: [email protected] .

Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook , Instagram , TikTok , WhatsApp , X and Threads .

IMAGES

Food web explained with examples
PPT
Food Web Research Paper
Simple Food Web Examples For Kids
Food Chains and Food Webs
A healthy eating essay sample and professional writing help

VIDEO

essay on my favourite food/10 lines on my favourite food/essay on my favourite food biryani in engli
Essay Writing About Food For Health
10 Lines essay on Healthy Food
Food chain and food web ||essay || @ananya'screation
JAM Session
General Essay- Food Problem- Appsc- Group-1 and Group-2

COMMENTS

Food Web
A food web consists of all the food chains in a single ecosystem.Each living thing in an ecosystem is part of multiple food chains.Each food chain is one possible path that energy and nutrients may take as they move through the ecosystem.All of the interconnected and overlapping food chains in an ecosystem make up a food web. Trophic Levels Organisms in food webs are grouped into categories ...
What Is a Food Web? Definition, Types, and Examples
A food web is a detailed interconnecting diagram that shows the overall food relationships between organisms in a particular environment. The simplest explanation is that food webs are "who eats ...
Food web
food web, a complex network of interconnecting and overlapping food chains showing feeding relationships within a community. A food chain shows how matter and energy from food are transferred from one organism to another, whereas a food web illustrates how food chains intertwine in an ecosystem. Food webs also demonstrate that most organisms ...
Food chains & food webs (article)
A food chain is a linear sequence of organisms through which nutrients and energy pass as one organism eats another. Let's look at the parts of a typical food chain, starting from the bottom (the producers) and moving upward. At the base of the food chain lie the primary producers.
Food Chains and Webs
A food chain outlines who eats whom. A food web is all of the food chains in an ecosystem. Each organism in an ecosystem occupies a specific trophic level or position in the food chain or web. Producers, who make their own food using photosynthesis or chemosynthesis, make up the bottom of the trophic pyramid. Primary consumers, mostly herbivores, exist at the next level, and secondary and ...
Food web
A freshwater aquatic food web. The blue arrows show a complete food chain (algae → daphnia → gizzard shad → largemouth bass → great blue heron). A food web is the natural interconnection of food chains and a graphical representation of what-eats-what in an ecological community.Ecologists can broadly define all life forms as either autotrophs or heterotrophs, based on their trophic ...
PDF Lecture 35
Food Web: A series of food chains. A summary of feeding relations in a community. The complexity of food webs tells us something about the complexity and stability of ecosystems. Components of Food Webs Producers — Convert solar energy into biomass; plants, algae Consumers — Consume energy fixed by producers 1. Herbivores — Consume plant ...
6.4: Food Chains and Food Webs
A food web represents multiple pathways through which energy and matter flow through an ecosystem. It includes many intersecting food chains. It demonstrates that most organisms eat, and are eaten, by more than one species. Examples are shown in Figures below and below. Food Web. This food web consists of several different food chains.
Food Web: an Exploration of Ecological Relationships
Conclusion. In conclusion, a food web is a multifaceted tool that unravels the intricate web of life within an ecological community. It transcends the simplicity of a linear food chain and provides a holistic view of how species are interconnected through predation, competition, and mutualism.
A primer on the history of food web ecology ...
Other sections in this essay highlight many of the ways food web-based perspectives have influenced population, community, and ecosystem sub-disciplines of ecology. Recently, another intriguing area of research is emerging — using food web ecology as a context to examine questions in evolutionary biology, in particular as a way to explore ...
Food Web and Impact of Environmental Degradation Research Paper
The food web is a natural interconnection that describes the manner in which energy is transferred from organism A to B, thereby supporting the survival of both plants and animals. Human beings form an important aspect or part of the food web since they are capable of engaging in activities and making decisions that could transform the overall ...
Ecology Tutorial Essay
Food webs By Kylie Dong Food webs are by definition: "a set of trophic (feeding) relationships among species in a community; schematically, the pattern often resembles a web of species each connected by trophic interactions with other species." Food webs have the capacity to embody all the dynamics and structure of an ecological community.
Science for Kids: Food Chain and Web
Food Chain and Food Web. Every living plant and animal must have energy to survive. Plants rely on the soil, water, and the sun for energy. Animals rely on plants as well as other animals for energy. In an ecosystem, plants and animals all rely on each other to live. Scientists sometimes describe this dependence using a food chain or a food web.
Food Chain and Food Web
Food web is a connection of multiple food chains. Food chain follows a single path whereas food web follows multiple paths. From the food chain, we get to know how organisms are connected with each other. Food chain and food web form an integral part of this ecosystem. Let us take a look at the food chain and a food web and the difference ...
Food chains and food webs (practice)
Learn for free about math, art, computer programming, economics, physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, finance, history, and more. Khan Academy is a nonprofit with the mission of providing a free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere.
Food Chains and Food Webs Discussion Questions
Food Chains and Food Webs Discussion Questions ( Activities ) | Biology | CK-12 Foundation. Describes how food chains and webs represent feeding relationships in an ecosystem. Estimated3 minsto complete.
Food Webs Essay ⋆ Environment Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire
This Food Webs Essay example is published for educational and informational purposes only. If you need a custom essay or research paper on this topic, please use our writing services.EssayEmpire.com offers reliable custom essay writing services that can help you to receive high grades and impress your professors with the quality of each essay or research paper you hand in.
Food Chain: Definition, Types, Examples, FAQs
But a food web shows different paths, where plants and animals are connected. A food web comprises several food chains. In a food chain, an organism eats a single item, whereas in a food web an organism consumes multiple items. In a food chain, there is a singular path for energy flow and in a food web, there are different paths for energy flow.
Food Web
A food web is a complex network of interdependent organisms in an ecosystem that rely on each other for survival. It shows the flow of energy and nutrients among different organisms, from producers (plants) to predators (carnivores) and decomposers (detritivores). Each organism is a part of several food chains, which are interconnected to form ...
Essay on Food Web Case Study
1. The food that animals waste. 2. Some plants are pollinated by animals. 3. Water, Light, Minerals. Food Webs Source web is a type of food web in which one or more types of prey are eaten by their predators and so forth up the food web. A community web will reveal a connection of who eats who. Energy flow web is a type of food web that will ...
Six Brilliant Student Essays on the Power of Food to Spark Social
Grace Williams, a student at Kirkwood High School in Kirkwood, Missouri, enjoys playing tennis, baking, and spending time with her family. Grace also enjoys her time as a writing editor for her school's yearbook, the Pioneer. In the future, Grace hopes to continue her travels abroad, as well as live near extended family along the sunny ...
Food Essay for Students and Children
A2. You cannot waste food by taking only a sufficient amount of it. Moreover, people should seal pack the leftover food and give it to the beggars. So that they can at least stay healthy and not starve. Share with friends. Previous. Next. Kalpana Chawla Essay for Students and Children.
Food Web
Food Web Diagram Temperate Forest: Lynx (C) Wolf (C) Bear (C) Cougar (C) Amphibians (C) Raccoons (C) Birds (C) Squirrel, Mice, and Chipmunks (C) Salmon (C) Insects (C, D) Deer and Elk (C) Primary Producer and Decomposer. Trees and Plants. The above food web describes how all the major categories of organism can work to together in an ecosystem ...
Long-term ocean sampling in Narragansett Bay reveals plummeting
Long-term ocean sampling in Narragansett Bay reveals plummeting plankton levels: impact uncertain for local food web. Long-term declines, half of prior numbers, revealed in new 60-year study. URI's R/V Cap'n Bert motors out of Wickford Harbor weekly to collect samples of Narragansett Bay with Abby Baskind and other graduate students. Over ...
Should Schools Serve Healthier Meals if It Changes Students' Favorite
Students 13 and older in the United States and Britain, and 16 and older elsewhere, are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that ...
Concerning levels of DDT found in deep-sea fish off L.A.
Scientists have found DDT in zooplankton and deep-sea fish off the coast of L.A., indicating the toxic chemical might be infiltrating the base of the food web.
Food and Drug Administration (FDA) v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine
The consolidated cases, Food and Drug Administration (FDA) v.Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine and Danco Laboratories, L.L.C. v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, address the FDAR 1 7;s adoption of less-restrictive approaches to regulating the availability of the drug mifepristone. Mifepristone is used in medication abortionR 1 2;a pregnancy termination method involving the use of ...
Opinion
They took all the processed food away and gave the rats their old healthy diet. Dr. Kenny was confident that they would eat more of it, proving that processed food had expanded their appetites ...
PDF Advance Monthly Sales for Retail and Food Services , April 2024
Advance estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales forApril 2024, adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading -day differences, but not for price changes, were $705.2 billion, virtually unchanged (±0.4 percent)* from the previous month, but up 3.0 percent (±0.5 percent) above April 2023. Total sales
Food and Drug Administration (FDA) v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine
The consolidated cases, Food and Drug Administration (FDA) v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine and Danco Laboratories, L.L.C. v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, address the FDA's adoption of less-restrictive approaches to regulating the availability of the drug mifepristone. Mifepristone is used in medication abortion—a pregnancy termination method involving the use of prescription drugs.