2.2.11—Food chains and trophic levels

Trophic levels track stages of consumer transfer; decomposers receive dead matter and waste from many levels, so they do not fit one fixed level.

Producers are level 1 and primary consumers level 2; decomposers transform material from several levels and return inorganic nutrients.

A fungus can decompose dead leaves from producers and carcasses from consumers, linking several trophic pathways.

Usually no; show their links to dead material from multiple levels.

Omitting decomposers from a simple chain does not mean they are absent.