The living beings that feed on dead or decayed organic matter are called saprophytes. Most saprophytes are fungi and bacteria which contain no chlorophyll. Many other animals eat dead plants and animal matter. They are useful scavengers and in sewage farms and refuse dumps break down organic matter into nutrients and easily assimilable by green plants.
When food chains are interconnected in an ecosystem they are called food webs. Sometimes one type of plant or animal is eaten by more than one kind of animal. In this way, two or more than two food chains get interconnected and form a food web. The more complex food web shows a greater variety of relationships.
In ecology, a sequence showing feeding relationship between organisms in particular ecosystem is known as food chain. Each organism depends on the next lowest member of the chain for its food. For example, grass is eaten by a deer and deer is eaten by a lion. Other examples of food chains are algae-duck-otter and flower-butterfly-lizard-snake-peacock.
Living beings which eat both plants and animals are called omnivores. Omnivores have digestive adaptions intermediate between those of herbivores and carnivores. They can digest variety of food stuffs. Human beings are omnivorous, because they eat meat, fish, vegetables and fruits. Other omnivorous animals are rats, pigs, bear and certain birds.
The livings being which eat other animals are called carnivores such as lion bear, cat, dog, wolf, weasel etc. Carnivores have special teeth for tearing and chewing flesh. In other words all flesh eating animals are carnivores. They also produce special enzymes for digesting meat.
Apart from animals, there are some plants that capture insects for food. They are called carnivorous plants. Since they cannot prepare their own protein, they get it by eating worms and insects. Venus fly trap, pitcher plant, sundew plant etc. are some examples of carnivorous plants. Similarly a plant called ‘Indian pipe’ is found in the hills of Shimla also eats insects.
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