Are Plants Producers or Consumers? (Position in Food Chain)
A food chain or food web consists of different organisms that are either producer, consumer, detritivores, or decomposers. Plants play an essential role in the food chain but are plants producers? Or are they considered consumers?
Most plants are producers (autotrophs). Plants can produce energy-rich molecules through photosynthesis and are primary producers. They are at the beginning of the food chain and are eaten by consumers who cannot produce their own energy. Most food chains you make will have a plant at the start.
Most plants you know such as trees, flowers, grasses, etc. are producers. They can create their own energy and don’t need to consume other organisms to get their energy. They do need water, sunlight, and minerals to create the energy they need.
But not all plants are producers and not all producers are plants. There are some (parasitic) plants that use a host plant to get their energy. As such they are not producers but consumers. There are also plants that are a producer but also eat insects, notably the Venus Flytrap.
To understand the plant as a producer, you’ll learn in this article about the food chain and the plant’s function in it. You’ll learn how plants produce their energy and what plants produce so we can live in our current world.
Food Chain Basics
A food chain is a linear network of links that connects different organisms. The links show what the food source is for each organism. If different food chains are interconnected, a food web is formed.
Food chains and food webs consist of three categories of organisms:
- producers
- consumers
- decomposers
Producers
Producers or autotrophs (which means “self-nourishment”) make their own energy by means of photosynthesis or chemosynthesis. In other words, they don’t need to feed on other organisms.
| Type of producer | Method |
|---|---|
| Photoautotrophs | Create organic molecules from water, carbon dioxide, minerals, and sunlight. |
| Chemoautotrophs | Create organic molecules from inorganic chemical compounds |
Producers that use photosynthesis (photoautotrophs) can be found on land and in water. The most common examples of photoautotrophs on land are plants (trees, grass, flowers), while algae are the most common photoautotrophs in our lakes and oceans.
The chemoautotrophs are a special kind of producer. They can be found in soil and deep in the ocean. However, they are far less common than photoautotrophs.
Consumers
Contrary to producers, consumers need to consume other (living) organisms to get their energy. In other words, consumers (heterotrophs) get their energy and nutrients from eating other plants or animals.
| Type of consumer | Feeding habit |
|---|---|
| Primary consumers | Herbivores |
| Secondary consumers | Carnivores or omnivores |
| Tertiary consumers | Carnivores |
At the top of each food chain is an apex predator, a consumer that doesn’t have any natural predators.
Decomposers
Decomposers are nature’s cleanup crew. Rather than feeding on living organisms, they feed on dead plant or animal material. In short, decomposers break apart dead organisms (such as leaf litter or dead animals) into inorganic materials. These inorganic materials are used by producers to create their energy.
Some decomposers only break down certain kinds of dead organisms while other decomposers break down any kind of dead material.
Most decomposers are only visible with a microscope. The most common decomposers are protozoa and bacteria. Others, like fungi and worms, are visible with the naked eye.
Plants as Primary Producers
Plants are the school example of a primary producer. Plants produce energy-rich molecules through a process called photosynthesis. They use water, carbon dioxide, minerals, and sunlight to create their own energy (food). As we already discussed, plants aren’t the only organisms that use photosynthesis. Algae also use photosynthesis but aren’t plants.
Plants produce their own energy (with photosynthesis)
The Earth’s first plants developed photosynthesis over 3 billion years ago. It’s believed that single-celled algae in the oceans were the first to develop this process.
Photosynthesis works through the ability of plants to harness the sun’s light to create chemical energy. To do this plants primarily need water and carbon dioxide which is transformed into sugars and oxygen. This oxygen produced as a byproduct of photosynthesis also produces the oxygen required by much of the planet’s life, including us.
Plants produce carbon based life
The chemical energy that’s produced by plants is biochemically known as carbohydrates. While from a nutrition standpoint carbohydrates are considered to be food likes grains, from a chemical standpoint this also includes simple sugars.
Simple sugars, also known as saccharides, are things like glucose, sucrose (table sugar), and fructose (fruit sugar). These simple sugars can be combined to form a wide array of complex sugars (also known as polysaccharides). The complex sugars include cellulose (fiber), starch, and pectins.
Plants produce the conditions necessary for life
Plants produce the energy-rich molecules that fuel life on this planet, but they also drastically have altered the planet’s terrestrial and atmospheric conditions in a way that has promoted the rich diversity of life we have today.
As previously mentioned, plants alter our atmosphere by producing the oxygen necessary for much of our planet’s life. They also change the atmosphere by sequestering atmospheric carbon into the fixed carbon found in carbohydrates.
While carbon dioxide only composes about 0.04 percent of the Earth’s atmosphere, it plays an essential role in maintaining the Earth’s temperature. The carbon that has been fixed as carbohydrates by photosynthetic organisms throughout history provides a stable and pleasant climate for all of the ecosystems on our planet.
Aside from our atmosphere, plants have also radically altered the terrestrial landscape in a very significant way. Over time, plants have created the fertile soils needed for the growth of lush forests and human agriculture. They have done this not only through their ability to break down and release mineral nutrients from rocks but also through their organic matter that provides fertility to the soil.
Are All Plants Producers?
Not all plants are producers (autotrophs). Some plants are parasitic in nature. These plants get their food from another living plant and are adapted to feed on these plants. Such parasitic plants are not producers but consumers (heterotrophs).
Parasitic plants have a special feature that’s called the haustorium, a specialized organ that can penetrate the host plant. With this organ, the parasitic plant creates a vascular connection with the host plant, providing the parasitic plant with the benefits. In some cases, parasitic plants can cause serious damage to the host plant.
Are There Other Producers?
Plants and algae (plant-like protists) produce the vast majority of biological energy. However, there do exist other bacterial producers that live in ocean trenches. These bacterial producers aren’t plants and live in very inhospitable conditions where only a few organisms can survive.
So, in short there are three large groups of producers:
- plants
- algae
- certain bacteria
The bacterial producers can survive extreme conditions with temperatures above the boiling point and high acidity. Most of these organisms are found in hydrothermal vents in the ocean, where energy from the Earth’s mantle is released in extreme temperatures.
The above-mentioned bacterial producers don’t use photosynthesis but chemosynthesis to create energy. Chemosynthesis allows these organisms to create energy-rich molecules through the oxidation of inorganic compounds.
Scientists even believe that chemosynthesis predates photosynthesis. It could also occur on other planets, like Mars.
Want to Learn More?
If you want to learn more interesting facts about plants, you should definitely read the following articles:
- Do plants have genders?
- Can plants get cancer?
- Do plants sleep?
