When you have an empty bottle, do you recycle it so the plastic or glass tin be used again? Nature has its ain recycling system: a group of organisms called decomposers.

Decomposers feed on dead things: dead institute materials such as leaf litter and woods, brute carcasses, and carrion. They perform a valuable service every bit Globe'due south cleanup crew. Without decomposers, dead leaves, expressionless insects, and expressionless animals would pile up everywhere. Imagine what the earth would look like!

More importantly, decomposers make vital nutrients available to an ecosystem's primary producers—ordinarily plants and algae. Decomposers interruption apart complex organic materials into more unproblematic substances: water and carbon dioxide, plus simple compounds containing nitrogen, phosphorus, and calcium. All of these components are substances that plants need to grow.

Some decomposers are specialized and break down just a certain kind of dead organism. Others are generalists that feed on lots of different materials. Thanks to decomposers, nutrients get added back to the soil or water, so the producers can apply them to grow and reproduce.

Nigh decomposers are microscopic organisms, including protozoa and leaner. Other decomposers are big enough to run into without a microscope. They include fungi along with invertebrate organisms sometimes chosen detritivores, which include earthworms, termites, and millipedes.

Fungi are important decomposers, specially in forests. Some kinds of fungi, such as mushrooms, look like plants. Simply fungi practise not contain chlorophyll, the paint that green plants use to make their ain food with the energy of sunlight. Instead, fungi get all their nutrients from dead materials that they interruption down with special enzymes.

The next time y'all see a forest floor carpeted with dead leaves or a dead bird lying nether a bush-league, accept a moment to appreciate decomposers for the style they keep nutrients flowing through an ecosystem.

Decomposers

While decomposers break down expressionless, organic materials, detritivores—like millipedes, earthworms, and termites—eat dead organisms and wastes.

algae

Plural Noun

(singular: alga) various grouping of aquatic organisms, the largest of which are seaweeds.

annelid

Noun

big phylum consisting of segmented worms, including terrestrial, marine, and freshwater species.

arthropod

Noun

invertebrate animal with a segmented body, exoskeleton, and jointed appendages.

Plural Noun

(singular: bacterium) single-celled organisms found in every ecosystem on Earth.

Noun

plants' green pigment that is essential to photosynthesis.

consumer

Substantive

organism on the food chain that depends on autotrophs (producers) or other consumers for food, nutrition, and energy.

decomposer

Noun

organism that breaks down dead organic material; also sometimes referred to as detritivores

Noun

community and interactions of living and nonliving things in an surface area.

fungi

Plural Noun

(atypical: fungus) organisms that survive by decomposing and absorbing nutrients in organic material such equally soil or dead organisms.

macroscopic

Adjective

large enough to be seen without the assistance of a microscope.

microscopic

Adjective

very small.

millipede

Noun

crawling insect with betwixt 20 and 100 segments, each with 2 pairs of legs.

Noun

substance an organism needs for energy, growth, and life.

organic

Adjective

equanimous of living or in one case-living fabric.

organism

Noun

living or once-living affair.

paint

Substantive

material that changes the color of reflected or transmitted light.

producer

Substantive

organism on the food chain that tin can produce its own energy and nutrients. As well called an autotroph.

protozoa

Noun

one-celled organisms in the kingdom protista, such as amoebas. (singular: protozoan)

termite

Substantive

pocket-sized insect that feeds on forest.

  • Credits

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    Managing director

    Tyson Brown, National Geographic Gild

    Writer

    National Geographic Society

    Production Managers

    Gina Borgia, National Geographic Gild
    Jeanna Sullivan, National Geographic Society

    Programme Specialists

    Sarah Appleton, National Geographic Society
    Margot Willis, National Geographic Society

    Producer

    Clint Parks

    Final Updated

    Jan. 8, 2020

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