Food Webs

“All elements of the marine food webs, to the extent that they are known, occur at normal abundance and diversity and levels capable of ensuring the long-term abundance of the species and the retention of their full reproductive capacity”.

Food webs are networks of feeding interactions between consumers and their food (or predators and prey). This descriptor addresses the functional aspects of marine food webs, especially the rates of energy transfer within the system and levels of productivity in key components, and ecosystem structure in terms of size and abundance of individuals.

Healthy and abundant food webs are crucial to ensure the survival of species. The best way to measure the functioning of an ecosystem in terms of food webs is by measuring the ratios of production at different trophic levels, the productivity (production per unit biomass) of key species or groups and trophic relationships (i.e. relationships between species that have the same predators and prey in a food web)