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Consumer–resource interactions are the core motif of ecological food chains or food webs, and are an umbrella term for a variety of more specialized types of biological species interactions including prey-predator (see
predation Predation is a biological interaction where one organism, the predator, kills and eats another organism, its prey. It is one of a family of common feeding behaviours that includes parasitism and micropredation (which usually do not kill ...
), host-parasite (see
parasitism Parasitism is a close relationship between species, where one organism, the parasite, lives on or inside another organism, the host, causing it some harm, and is adapted structurally to this way of life. The entomologist E. O. Wilson ha ...
), plant- herbivore and victim-exploiter systems. These kinds of interactions have been studied and modeled by population ecologists for nearly a century. Species at the bottom of the food chain, such as
algae Algae (; singular alga ) is an informal term for a large and diverse group of photosynthetic eukaryotic organisms. It is a polyphyletic grouping that includes species from multiple distinct clades. Included organisms range from unicellular micr ...
and other autotrophs, consume non-biological resources, such as
minerals In geology and mineralogy, a mineral or mineral species is, broadly speaking, a solid chemical compound with a fairly well-defined chemical composition and a specific crystal structure that occurs naturally in pure form.John P. Rafferty, ed ...
and
nutrients A nutrient is a substance used by an organism to survive, grow, and reproduce. The requirement for dietary nutrient intake applies to animals, plants, fungi, and protists. Nutrients can be incorporated into cells for metabolic purposes or excr ...
of various kinds, and they derive their energy from light ( photons) or chemical sources. Species higher up in the food chain survive by consuming other species and can be classified by what they eat and how they obtain or find their food.


Classification of consumer types


The standard categorization

Various terms have arisen to define consumers by what they eat, such as meat-eating carnivores, fish-eating piscivores, insect-eating insectivores, plant-eating herbivores, seed-eating granivores, and fruit-eating frugivores and omnivores are meat eaters and plant eaters. An extensive classification of consumer categories based on a list of feeding behaviors exists.


The Getz categorization

Another way of categorizing consumers, proposed by South African American ecologist Wayne Getz, is based on a biomass transformation web (BTW) formulation that organizes resources into five components: live and dead animal, live and dead plant, and particulate (i.e. broken down plant and animal) matter. It also distinguishes between consumers that gather their resources by moving across landscapes from those that mine their resources by becoming sessile once they have located a stock of resources large enough for them to feed on during completion of a full life history stage. In Getz's scheme, words for miners are of Greek etymology and words for gatherers are of Latin etymology. Thus a bestivore, such as a cat, preys on live animals (Latin: bestia=animal) while a sarcophage, such as a botfly larva mines live flesh and a zontanophage (Greek: zontanos=alive), such as a leaf miner, mines live plant material. A carcasivore (Latin: carcasium=carcass), such as white-backed vulture, scavenge animal carcasses while a necrophage (Greek: nekros=dead body), such as a blowfly, mines dead flesh. Victivores (Latin: victus=living) gather live plant material and thus include frugivores, nectivores, graminivores, granivores and folivores as subcategories. Lectivores, such as many termites, gather dead plant material (Latin: lectus=bed which is the root of the word litter, as in leaf-litter) and thanatophages (Greek: thanatos=death), such as pillbugs mine piles of dead plant material. Carnivore and herbivore are generic multigroup categories for gathers respectively of animal and plant material, irrespective of whether live or dead. Croppers, scavengers, and detritivores are gatherers respectively of live, dead, and particulate material. Parasites, saprophages, and decomposers are miners respectively of live, dead, and particulate material.


Specialist totivores (gatherers)

* Folivore * Frugivore * Fungivore * Carnivore * Insectivore * Molluscivore * Piscivore * Avivore *
Spongivore A spongivore is an animal anatomically and physiologically adapted to eating animals of the phylum Porifera, commonly called sea sponges, for the main component of its diet. As a result of their diet, spongivore animals like the hawksbill turtle ha ...
* Graminivore *
Granivore Seed predation, often referred to as granivory, is a type of plant-animal interaction in which granivores (seed predators) feed on the seeds of plants as a main or exclusive food source,Hulme, P.E. and Benkman, C.W. (2002) "Granivory", pp. 132 ...
* Nectarivore * Palynivore * Bacterivore *
Detritivore Detritivores (also known as detrivores, detritophages, detritus feeders, or detritus eaters) are heterotrophs that obtain nutrients by consuming detritus (decomposing plant and animal parts as well as feces). There are many kinds of invertebrate ...
* Ophiophagy


Specialist olophages (miners)

*
Coprophagy Coprophagia () or coprophagy () is the consumption of feces. The word is derived from the grc, κόπρος , "feces" and , "to eat". Coprophagy refers to many kinds of feces-eating, including eating feces of other species (heterospecifics), o ...
*
Geophagy Geophagia (), also known as geophagy (), is the intentional practice of eating earth or soil-like substances such as clay, chalk, or termite mounds. It is a behavioural adaptation that occurs in many non-human animals and has been documented in ...
* Hematophagy * Lepidophagy * Mucophagy * Myrmecophagy * Osteophagy * Oophagy * Ophiophagy * Ovophagy * Placentophagy * Saprophagy * Sarcophagy * Thanatophagy * Xylophagy * Zontanophagy


See also

* Cannibalism * Food web * Herbivore *
Omnivore An omnivore () is an animal that has the ability to eat and survive on both plant and animal matter. Obtaining energy and nutrients from plant and animal matter, omnivores digest carbohydrates, protein, fat, and fiber, and metabolize the nu ...
*
Parasitoid In evolutionary ecology, a parasitoid is an organism that lives in close association with its host (biology), host at the host's expense, eventually resulting in the death of the host. Parasitoidism is one of six major evolutionarily stable str ...
*
Predation Predation is a biological interaction where one organism, the predator, kills and eats another organism, its prey. It is one of a family of common feeding behaviours that includes parasitism and micropredation (which usually do not kill ...
* Scavenger * Trophallaxis


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Consumer-resource interactions Eating behaviors Biological interactions