Why is a food web a more realistic representation of a community as compared to a food chain?
1 Answer
It's more realistic than a straight line
Explanation:
Firstly things are constantly interacting downwards AND upwards. It's not puma eats rabbit eats mushroom. The rabbit can be used as nutrients by the mushrooms and so can the puma. And everything is eaten by bacteria.
You may need to account for the roles of animals. Foxes eat mice. Owls eat mice. Cats eat mice. Snakes eat mice. Some animals are food sources that are very important and a lot of animals would suffer if they were removed. You can't reflect that with a simple line. Some animals are generalists, they eat everything. Some are specialists and we'd be overrun by their prey if they didn't hunt.
And some animals participate in cycles! The point is, it's not a dog eat dog world, even on paper. It's a lot more complicated.
