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The terms detritivore and decomposer are often used interchangeably, but they describe different organisms. Detritivores are usually arthropods and help in the process of remineralization. Detritivores perform the first stage of remineralization, by fragmenting the dead plant matter, allowing decomposers to perform the second stage of ...
"Detritivore" describes behavior and physiology, while "decomposer" describes an ecosystem role. Therefore, an organism can be both a detritivore and a decomposer. While there are also purely physical processes, like weathering and ultraviolet light , that contribute to decomposition, "decomposer" refers only to living organisms that contribute ...
Decomposers (detritivores) break down dead plant and animal material and wastes and release it again as energy and nutrients into the ecosystem for recycling. Decomposers, such as bacteria and fungi (mushrooms), feed on waste and dead matter, converting it into inorganic chemicals that can be recycled as mineral nutrients for plants to use again.
They are distinguished from detritivores in that saprophages are sessile consumers while detritivores are mobile. [citation needed] Typical saprophagic animals include sedentary polychaetes such as amphitrites (Amphitritinae, worms of the family Terebellidae) and other terebellids. The eating of wood, whether live or dead, is known as xylophagy ...
In a detrital web, plant and animal matter is broken down by decomposers, e.g., bacteria and fungi, and moves to detritivores and then carnivores. [69] There are often relationships between the detrital web and the grazing web. Mushrooms produced by decomposers in the detrital web become a food source for deer, squirrels, and mice in the ...
"The mushrooms are the reproductive structure of a fungus that grows underground," Anne Pringle, a mycologist and expert on death cap mushrooms at the University of Wisconsin—Madison, tells ...
Mushrooms grow out of the ground in a wide variety of climates, but humid, warm climates are most common. Some species also grow in colder climates and across mountainous terrain.
All saprotrophic bacteria are unicellular prokaryotes, and reproduce asexually through binary fission. [2] Variation in the turnover times (the rate at which a nutrient is depleted and replaced in a particular nutrient pool) of the bacteria may be due in part to variation in environmental factors including temperature, soil moisture, soil pH, substrate type and concentration, plant genotype ...