Are you familiar with such concepts as consumers, decomposers and producers? If not, then our article is for you. In fact, these organisms are well known to everyone. Who are they? Let's figure it out together.
The concept of the food chain
All components of the ecosystem are closely interconnected. Thanks to this, various communities are formed in nature. The structure of any ecosystem includes abiotic and biotic parts. The first is a collection of living organisms. It is called biocenosis. The abiotic part includes mineral and organic compounds.
The functioning of any ecosystem is associated with the conversion of energy. Its main source is sunlight. Photosynthetic organisms use it to synthesize organic substances. Heterotrophs obtain energy from the breakdown of organic matter. Only a small part of it is used for growth. And the rest is spent for the implementation of vital processes.
As a result, orders are formed in which individuals of one species, their remains or waste products are the source of nutrition for others. They arecalled trophic or food chains.
Trophic levels
Each food chain consists of a certain number of links. It has been established that during the transition from one to another, part of the energy is constantly lost. Therefore, the number of links is usually 4-5. The position of a population of individual species in the food chain is called the trophic level.
What are consumers
All organisms of the food chain are combined into groups. These include representatives of absolutely all kingdoms of wildlife, regardless of the level of their organization. Let's take a look at each one.
What are consumers? These are heterotrophs - organisms that feed on ready-made organic substances. They are not capable of independent synthesis. Depending on the nature of food and the method of its extraction, several types of consumers are distinguished:
- Phytophages eat only plant foods. Examples are leaf beetles, aphids, mealybugs, caterpillars of most butterflies.
- Predators attack the prey, kill and eat it. Most of them are representatives of the class of mammals: lions, hyenas, wolves, jackals, foxes. But among the predators there are some types of plants (dew, pemphigus), fungi (zygo- and ascomycetes).
- Parasites feed on the host's body, living on its body or in internal organs.
- Another type of consumer is saprotrophs. Their food source is the remains of dead bodies or excrement. In this mannerorganic matter is decomposed by fungi, bacteria and protozoa.
Consumers: Orders
Heterotrophs occupy different levels in the food chain. All herbivorous species are consumers of the first order. The next level is predators. They are already second order consumers.
Let's consider this hierarchy on a concrete example. Let's say the food web looks like: a mosquito, a frog, a stork. Which of them is the consumer of the first order? This is a frog. Then the consumer of the second order is the stork. In nature, there are heterotrophs that feed on both plants and animals. Such consumers can simultaneously be at several trophic levels.
Producers
Speaking about what consumers are, we paid attention to the type of their food. Let us consider another group of the trophic web from this perspective. Producers are a group of organisms that are autotrophs. They are able to synthesize organic substances from minerals.
There are two types of producers: auto - and chemotrophs. The former use the energy of sunlight to create organic matter. These are plants, cyanobacteria, some protozoa. Chemotrophs have the ability to oxidize various chemical compounds. At the same time, energy is generated, which they use to carry out waste products. These include nitrogen-fixing, sulfur, iron bacteria.
The presence of producers is a necessary condition for the development of any ecosystem. This fact is explainedbecause photosynthetic organisms are a source of energy.
Decomposers
Another role in the ecosystem belongs to heterotrophic organisms that feed on the organic matter of the remains or waste products of other species, which they decompose into minerals. This function is performed by reducers. Representatives of this group are bacteria and fungi.
It is at the level of producers in the ecosystem that energy is accumulated. Then it passes through consumers and producers, where it is consumed. At each successive trophic level, some of the energy is dissipated as heat.
Types of food chains
Energy in the ecosystem is divided into two streams. The first is directed to consumers from producers, the second - from dead organics. Depending on this, food webs of pasture and detrital types are distinguished. In the first case, the initial trophic level is the producers that transfer energy to consumers of different levels. The pasture chain ends with decomposers.
The detrital chain starts with dead organics and continues with saprotrophs, which are representatives of consumers. The last link in this chain is also the decomposers.
Within any ecosystem, there are many food chains at the same time. All of them are inseparable from each other and are closely intertwined. This happens because representatives of the same species can simultaneously be links in different chains. This is how trophic webs are formed. And what are theythe more branched, the more stable the ecosystem.
Summarize
So, in our article we examined what consumers are. These are heterotrophic organisms that are part of the trophic chains. They are an essential component of ecosystems and consume ready-made organic matter. Depending on the nature of the food and the way it is obtained, among the consumers there are herbivores, predators, saprotrophs and parasites. Representatives of such organisms are animals, as well as some representatives of plants, fungi and bacteria. In the ecosystem, they are energy consumers.
