Each trophic level has a certain mass of living material at a particular time and this is called as Standing crop. It is measured as the mass of living organisms (biomass) or the number in a unit area.
This is the basic unit.
These organisms can live without feeding on any another level.
The only thing that these organisms need to survive is sunlight and water which they can turn into energy themselves.
All other trophic levels depend on this level for energy.
Producers → Primary consumers → Secondary consumers
DFC is Detritus Food Chain: It begins with dead organic matter. It is made up of decomposers which are heterotrophic organisms like fungi, bacteria etc.
GFC is the major conduct for energy flow. DFC may be connected with GFC at some levels: Some of the organisms of DFC are prey to the GFC animals.
$\text{Producers}\xrightarrow[]{\downarrow\ \text{Decomposers}}\ \text{Primary consumers}\xrightarrow[]{\downarrow\ \text{Decomposers}}\ \text{Secondary consumers.}$
These natural inter connection of food chains forms food web.
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