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Saprophages are organisms that obtain nutrients by consuming decomposing dead plant or animal biomass. They are distinguished from detritivores in that saprophages are
Saprophages are organisms that obtain nutrients by consuming decomposing dead plant or animal biomass. They are distinguished from detritivores in that saprophages are sessile
Sessility, or sessile, may refer to:
* Sessility (motility), organisms which are not able to move about
* Sessility (botany), flowers or leaves that grow directly from the stem or peduncle of a plant
* Sessility (medicine), tumors and polyps that ...
consumers while detritivores are mobile. Typical saprophagic animals include sedentary polychaete
Polychaeta () is a paraphyletic class of generally marine annelid worms, commonly called bristle worms or polychaetes (). Each body segment has a pair of fleshy protrusions called parapodia that bear many bristles, called chaetae, which are made ...
s such as amphitrites (''Amphitritinae'', worms of the family Terebellidae
The Terebellidae is a marine family of polychaete worms, of which the type taxon is '' Terebella'', described by Carl Linnaeus in his 1767 12th edition of ''Systema Naturae''.
Characteristics
Most terebellids live in burrows or crevices and ...
) and other terebellids.
The eating of wood, whether live or dead, is known as xylophagy
Xylophagy is a term used in ecology to describe the habits of an herbivorous animal whose diet consists primarily (often solely) of wood. The word derives from Greek ''ξυλοφάγος'' (''xulophagos'') "eating wood", from ''ξύλον'' (') ...
. The activity of animals feeding only on dead wood is called sapro-xylophagy and those animals, sapro-xylophagous.
Ecology
In food webs, saprophages generally play the roles ofdecomposers
Decomposers are Organism, organisms that break down dead or decaying organisms; they carry out decomposition, a process possible by only certain kingdoms, such as fungi. Like herbivores and predators, decomposers are heterotrophic, meaning that t ...
. There are two main branches of saprophages, broken down by nutrient source. There are necrophages which consume dead animal biomass, and thanatophages which consume dead plant biomass.
See also
* Detritivore *Decomposer
Decomposers are organisms that break down dead or decaying organisms; they carry out decomposition, a process possible by only certain kingdoms, such as fungi. Like herbivores and predators, decomposers are heterotrophic, meaning that they use o ...
*Saprotrophic nutrition
Saprotrophic nutrition or lysotrophic nutrition is a process of chemoheterotrophic extracellular digestion involved in the processing of decayed (dead or waste) organic matter. It occurs in saprotrophs, and is most often associated with fungi ( ...
* Consumer-resource systems
References
{{modelling ecosystems Eating behaviors Mycology Soil biology