food chain

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food chain (plural food chains)

1. The feeding relationships between species in a biotic community.

   Coordinate term: food web (an alternative metaphor often considered more apt)

   • 2013 February 6, Stephanie Strom, “Study Looks at Particles Used in Food”, in The New York Times‎^[1], →ISSN:

     Nanomaterials, substances broken down by technology into molecule-size particles, are starting to enter the food chain through well-known food products and their packaging, but there is little acknowledgment by the companies using them, according to a new report from a nonprofit group that works to enhance corporate accountability.

2. (idiomatic) A hierarchy.

   With my promotion this month I will continue my steady journey to the top of the food chain.

   • 1998, Luke Sullivan, "Hey, Whipple, Squeeze This": A Guide to Creating Great Ads, page 164:

     He, too, was a meat puppet. Unable to make any decision without imagined repercussions from above, he chose to make none and instead passed his decision onto the next guy up the food chain.

   • 2012, Renee Pires, Day Trips from Philadelphia, page 43:

     At the top of the food chain is PJ's, whose pizza wins high accolades, and whose menu of fat sandwiches (a local delicacy that stuffs as many deep-fried items into a roll as possible) is extensive.

Because the concept of the food chain implies a feeding hierarchy proceeding upwards to a top predator, modern ecologists usually prefer the term food web, since that term allows for a more complicated system of interactions.