What Is an Aquatic Food Web

Food webs describe who eats whom in an ecological community. … Phytoplankton and algae form the bases of aquatic food webs. They are eaten by primary consumers like zooplankton, small fish, and crustaceans. Primary consumers are in turn eaten by fish, small sharks, corals, and baleen whales.

What is an example of an aquatic food chain?

For example, when a small fish eats an aquatic insect, and a larger fish eats the small fish, the two fish and the insect are linked in a food chain.

What is the difference between aquatic and terrestrial food webs?

Contrasts between aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems in particular have inspired much speculation, but only recent empirical quantification. … The available data indicate that contrasts between aquatic and terrestrial food webs are driven primarily by the growth rate, size and nutritional quality of autotrophs.