Sabrina: Have you ever had to take out the garbage, kinda gross right? But someone's gotta do it, and we're not the only things that make waste; trees drop their leaves and animal's drop - well- other stuff. So what happens to all that waste that's created in nature?

(0:26) It turns out that waste, as gross as it may seem, is actually a good source of energy for lots of different living things like, bacteria, some fungi, insects, and worms. These organisms, called decomposers, break down waste and the remains of dead plants and animals to get their energy. Which is a bonus for the rest of us because thanks to decomposers there's a lot less waste and dead stuff lying around.

Now if you've been paying attention so far in our little talks here, you'll remember that all living things need energy to survive and energy flows through a system of living things moving from plant, to animal, to other animals in a "what eats what" model called a food chain.

We use  food chains to see how energy flows between living things in an ecosystem. So decomposers are living things too and since they need energy to live just like anybody else, they need a spot in the food chain. But where do decomposers fit in a food chain? Let's take a look at a simple little ecosystem to see where they might find a home.

(1:21) Plants, like this apple tree, are able to grab the energy that comes from the sun. They use this energy to take water, nutrients, and a little bit of gas from the air, to create chemical energy.

The tree stashes some of that energy in it's fruit, which happens to be delicious. If an apple happens to fall to the ground and gets nibbled on by a mouse, some of the energy from the apple is going to be transferred to the mouse. And if the mouse is unfortunate enough to be spotted by an owl, it's going to end up as an owl brunch, and the energy from the mouse will be transferred to the owl.

Apple, mouse, owl, that's a simple enough food chain right. Everyone has their place in it -  the system works. But decomposers can live and work in more than one spot in this food chain. They can show up any time there is waste to break down like the left over apple the mouse didn't eat or the owl's droppings. 

Decomposers break those things down into smaller parts into nutrients and other chemicals. These chemicals go into the ground and are taken up by plants so they can use them to make more energy, and the process starts all over again.

Not to get all Lion King on you, but I'm thinking this really closes up the circle of life, right? And since we're talking about circles and cycles, lets recycle some of these ideas one last time.