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The Ocean’s Clean-up Crew
Living in the muck on the ocean floor are decomposers. These are animals like marine worms and bacteria whose job is to break down the dead which
drift to the bottom. Most humans don’t have a high opinion of decomposers who are queen and king of the “ooze”. The truth is that they play an important role in the balance of ocean systems. Decomposers break down the dead into nutrients which are essential for primary producers (phytoplankton) in an ocean food web. The decomposers take something dead and allow it to be reused by the living.
Besides decomposers, the clean-up crew includes scavengers (sharks, crabs, and many deep-water fishes). Scavengers feed on dead things when they are quite fresh, while decomposers finish the job on the ocean floor.
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