Food web. In nature the food chains are not strictly linear, but are interrelated and interconnected with one another. Generally, the various food chains in a community are so interlinked as to form as sort of web. With the result, one animal may be a link in more than one food chain. A network of food chains in a community are referred to as a food web. A food web may have all or some of the three types of food chains i.e. Detritus, predator and parasitic. The food webs become more complicated because of variability of taste and preference, availability and compulsion and several other factors at each level. For example, tigers normally do not eat fish or crab, but they are forced to feed on them in the Sunderbans.

Food web in a pond.