| / English Dictionary |
FOOD CHAIN
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
(ecology) a community of organisms where each member is eaten in turn by another member
Classified under:
Nouns denoting natural phenomena
Hypernyms ("food chain" is a kind of...):
organic phenomenon ((biology) a natural phenomenon involving living plants and animals)
Domain category:
bionomics; ecology; environmental science (the branch of biology concerned with the relations between organisms and their environment)
Holonyms ("food chain" is a part of...):
food cycle; food web ((ecology) a community of organisms where there are several interrelated food chains)
Context examples:
Beard said that the two newly described fossil marsupials lived atop the food chain because other carnivores were unable to reach the small island.
(Fossil discovery adds to understanding of how geological changes affected evolution of mammalian life, National Science Foundation)
The work represents an unprecedented monitoring of soils and forests from hot tropical forests to cold boreal forests and fills important gaps in our understanding of how organisms in different levels of an ecosystem's food chain are linked via temperature, ecologist Brian Enquist said.
(From tropical to boreal ecosystems, temperature drives functioning, National Science Foundation)
Corals and algae release nutrients that support a complex and efficient reef food chain.
(Too much algae and too many microbes threaten coral reefs, NSF)
We wanted to find out how these superbugs are spread — and whether there is a cross-over from the food chain to humans said lead author Professor David Livermore of the University of East Anglia's medical school.
(Wash your hands or else spread superbug E. coli, say scientists, Wikinews)
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