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:
“Nor must Uncle Sam’s Web-feet be forgotten. At all the watery margins they have been present. Not only on the deep sea, the broad bay, and the rapid river, but also up the narrow muddy bayou, and wherever the ground was a little damp, they have been, and made their tracks.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
“When no food is given to the ear,
Then let a little be given to the stomach.”
—Tiruvalluvar (c. 5th century A.D.)
“You sit around here and you spin your little webs and you think the whole world revolves around you and your money. Well it doesn’t, Mr. Potter. In the whole vast configuration of things I’d say you were nothing but a scurvy little spider.”
—Frances Goodrich (1891–1984)