The soil food web is the community of organisms living all or part of their lives in the soil. It describes a complex living system in the soil and how it interacts with the environment, plants, and animals.
Food webs describe the transfer of energy between species in an ecosystem. While a food chain examines one, linear, energy pathway through an ecosystem, a food web is more complex and illustrates all of the potential pathways. Much of this transferred energy comes from the sun. Plants use the sun’s energy to convert inorganic compounds into energy-rich, organic compounds, turning carbon dioxide and minerals into plant material by photosynthesis. Plant flowers exude energy-rich nectar above ground and plant roots exude acids, sugars, and ectoenzymes into the rhizosphere, adjusting the pH and feeding the food web underground.[2][3][4]
Plants are called autotrophs because they make their own energy; they are also called producers because they produce energy available for other organisms to eat. Heterotrophs are consumers that cannot make their own food. In order to obtain energy they eat plants or other heterotrophs.
- ^ "Soil Biology Primer Photo Gallery". Natural Resources Conservation Service - Soils. Soil and Water Conservation Society, U.S. Department of Agriculture. Retrieved 14 August 2016.
- ^ Marschner, Horst (1995). Mineral Nutrition of Higher Plants. Gulf Professional. ISBN 978-0124735439.
- ^ Walker, T. S.; Bais, H. P.; Grotewold, E.; Vivanco, J. M. (2003). "Root Exudation and Rhizosphere Biology". Plant Physiology. 132 (1): 44–51. doi:10.1104/pp.102.019661. PMC 1540314. PMID 12746510.
- ^ Power, Michael L. (2010). Anne M. Burrows; Leanne T. Nash (eds.). The Evolution of Exudativory in Primates / Nutritional and Digestive Challenges to Being a Gum-feeding Primate. Springer. p. 28. ISBN 9781441966612. Retrieved 2 October 2012.