Final answer:
A food web demonstrates the complex feeding relationships in an ecosystem, showing how energy flows through numerous interconnected pathways and involving primary producers, consumers, and decomposers.
Step-by-step explanation:
A food web is an ecological model that represents the complex interconnections of energy flow through an ecosystem, accounting for multiple trophic (feeding) interactions amongst various species. Unlike a food chain, which is a linear representation, a food web reflects the reality that most organisms may feed on multiple species and, in turn, may be eaten by multiple predators. This holistic model includes primary producers, such as plants and photosynthetic organisms, primary consumers, such as herbivores, and higher-level consumers, such as carnivores and omnivores, in both grazing and detrital systems. Grazing food webs start with photosynthetic organisms and move up through herbivores to carnivores, whereas detrital food webs are based on organisms that feed on decaying matter and include decomposers and detritivores, highlighting the pathway of recycling matter back into the ecosystem.