AP BIOLOGY

Detailed explanation-1: -Decomposers like fungi and bacteria complete the food chain. They turn organic wastes, such as decaying plants, into inorganic materials, such as nutrient-rich soil. Decomposers complete the cycle of life, returning nutrients to the soil or oceans for use by autotrophs.

Detailed explanation-2: -In a food web nutrients are recycled in the end by decomposers. Animals like shrimp and crabs can break the materials down to detritus. Then bacteria reduce the detritus to nutrients. Decomposers work at every level, setting free nutrients that form an essential part of the total food web.

Detailed explanation-3: -All food chains start with energy from the sun. This energy is captured by plants. Thus the living part of a food chain always starts with plant life and ends with an animal. Plants are called producers because they are able to use light energy from the sun to produce food (sugar) from carbon dioxide and water.

Detailed explanation-4: -Without decomposers, dead leaves, dead insects, and dead animals would pile up everywhere. Imagine what the world would look like! More importantly, decomposers make vital nutrients available to an ecosystem’s primary producers-usually plants and algae.

Detailed explanation-5: -In a detrital food chain, dead organic matter of plants and animals is broken down by decomposers, e.g., bacteria and fungi, and moves to detritivores and then carnivores. Food web offers an important tool for investigating the ecological interactions that define energy flows and predator-prey relationship (Cain et al.