Plants are the basis of life on Earth. They emit various substances of organic nature, which are formed by the absorption of mineral salts and water, carbon dioxide and the energy of sunlight. Of course, the importance of plants in nature is great: it is both nutrition for mammals and a source of oxygen. But what is the role of animals in nature? Mammals are by no means a secondary component of nature, which consumes substances created by plants. One of the main functions of animals in the natural environment is to participate in the cycle of substances, without which no organism on Earth could survive.
The role of animals in nature
The complex of organisms in any ecosystem can be divided into three groups:
- producers are green plants that create organic from inorganic substances;
- consumers - animals that feed on plants or animal food, processing, and then dispersing organic substances in the thickness of the soil or on its surface;
- reducers - these are fungi and bacteria that turn all organic substances that appear as a result of the activity of both animals and plants into gases and mineral salts.
Accordingly, salts and gases can be reused by the roots and leaves of plants. This is how the cycle of energy and substances in nature is established with the participation of living organisms.
What is the role of animals in nature?
Functions of animals in nature:
1. Participation in the cycle of substances.
2. The role of animals in nature lies in the formation of soils. Invertebrates are especially important - ticks, insects, mollusks and earthworms. It is where there are many soil-forming invertebrates that the vegetative layer of the Earth develops well.
3. The third, no less important role of animals is to destroy insufficiently viable and diseased plant specimens. In this way, animals help to carry out natural selection, thereby maintaining and increasing the viability of plants, accelerating their evolution. Parasitic and carnivorous animals with respect to herbivorous mammals play the same role.
4. Control of the population. Parasitic and predatory animals inhibit the reproduction of herbivores. Otherwise, the latter could have completely destroyed certain plant species in just a few years. Insectivorous birds are especially important (the importance of birds in nature is great: they inhibit the excessive reproduction of insects and other animals), birds of prey, toads and frogs, lizards, bats, flies, ground beetles, ants, wasps and other groups of invertebrates and vertebrates.
5. Cross-pollination of almost all types of angiosperms, distribution of seeds of shrubs and trees. The pollination is attended by tens of thousands of bees that live in savannahs, deserts, steppes, and alpine meadows. Even in the north of Greenland there is a population of bumblebees. The role of peddlers of the seeds of trees, grasses and shrubs are the highest vertebrates - granivorous and carnivorous birds, rodents and ungulates.
Almost all people represent the animal world in the form of large birds and mammals, reptiles and snakes. Elephants and lions, zebras and antelopes, ostriches and vultures are associated with savannas in the view of many people, orangutans and gorillas, tigers and boas, beautiful birds of paradise are associated with tropical forests, grouse, wolves and bears, deer and hares with taiga. But not in all natural processes, mammals play a major role. In eating vegetation, in the processes of soil formation, in pollination of plants, it is given to animal invertebrates: millipedes, arachnids, worms, insects, etc. This is due to their huge number and exceptional variety. The role of animals in nature is certainly high. And the task of mankind is to preserve all types of animals and natural balance.