Answer – A food chain is a simple potential path describing the flow of energy from one trophic level to the next, while a food web is a complex system comprising several interconnected food chains in an ecosystem. 

Explanation:

Trophic levels are the positions that exist in a food chain. There are roughly three trophic levels: producers, such as plants, who produce their own food; consumers, such as herbivores and carnivores, who eat the producers and other consumers to obtain their food; and decomposers, who find their food/energy from the dead remains of producers and composers while also promoting their decomposition and return to the soil from which producers can draw nutrients. 

A food chain is a simple pathway, which demonstrates the straightforward linear flow of energy from producers to consumers to decomposers, and back to producers, restarting the chain. 

In reality, however, the flow of energy is not as straightforward. A single ecosystem comprises several species occupying a single trophic level. Some organisms may even occupy multiple different trophic levels. Their interactions are more complex, and when laid out, appear to resemble interconnected food chains. Energy can flow to a higher trophic level, and instead of moving to the next level as described by the food chain, may instead flow to a lower level instead. Or it may skip a level entirely (for instance, when plants die, the energy contained in them does not go through producers, but is instantly available to decomposers). This more complex system is the food web.

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