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Features
In most food chains, energy flows from producers to consumers and finally to decomposers, which recycle nutrients back to the producers. In a detrital food web, by contrast, the energy from producers flows directly to decomposers, which in turn furnish food and energy for consumers.
Function
In detrital food webs, bacteria and fungi consume detritus from primary producers or consumers. The microbes in turn fall prey to other microorganisms or larger organisms that consume the detritus together with its decomposers. Since the microbes have extracted much of the energy from the detritus, they will in turn furnish energy and proteins to the organisms that eat them, which will in turn pass nutrients up the food chain.
Examples
Detrital food webs are common in coastal tidal habitats like Spartina salt marshes, where the tough grasses that inhabit the marsh deter grazing animals. Only once the grasses die do they enter the food chain by becoming food for decomposers.