Ecosystems and Their Components

Core concept

Biotic components include producers (plants, which make their own food), consumers (animals, which eat other organisms), and decomposers (fungi and bacteria, which break down dead matter, recycling nutrients back into the ecosystem). Abiotic components like temperature, sunlight, and rainfall determine which organisms can survive in a particular ecosystem — for example, a desert ecosystem supports very different organisms than a rainforest ecosystem due to differing abiotic conditions.