Above Ground Food Webs
In above ground food webs, energy moves from producers (plants) to primary consumers (herbivores) and then to secondary consumers (predators). The phrase, trophic level, refers to the different levels or steps in the energy pathway. In other words, the producers, consumers, and decomposers are the main trophic levels. This chain of energy transferring from one species to another can continue several more times, but eventually ends. At the end of the food chain, decomposers such as bacteria and fungi break down dead plant and animal material into simple nutrients.
Read more about this topic: Soil Food Web
Famous quotes containing the words ground, food and/or webs:
“When the ground was partially bare of snow, and a few warm days had dried its surface somewhat, it was pleasant to compare the first tender signs of the infant year just peeping forth with the stately beauty of the withered vegetation which had withstood the winter ... decent weeds, at least, which widowed Nature wears.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“A few pieces of fat pine were a great treasure. It is interesting to remember how much of this food for fire is still concealed in the bowels of the earth.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Sometimes outside beneath a bombers’ moon
You stood alone to watch the searchlights trace
Their careful webs against the boding sky,”
—Edgar Bowers (b. 1924)