The trophic level of an organism is the position it occupies in a food chain. The word trophic derives from the Greek referring to food or feeding.
A food chain represents a succession of organisms that eat another organism and are, in turn, eaten themselves. The number of steps an organism is from the start of the chain is a measure of its trophic level. Food chains start at
trophic level 1 with primary producers such as plants,
move to herbivores at level 2,
predators at level 3
and typically finish with carnivores or apex predators at level 4 or 5.