consumer

consumer In the widest sense, a heterotroph that feeds on living or dead organic material. Two main categories are recognized: (a) macroconsumers (mainly animals), which wholly or partly ingest other living organisms or organic particulate matter; and (b) microconsumers (mainly bacteria and fungi), which feed by breaking down complex organic compounds in dead protoplasm. Sometimes the term ‘consumer’ is confined to macro-consumers, microconsumers being known as ‘decomposers’. Consumers may then be termed ‘primary’ (herbivores), ‘secondary’ (herbivore-eating carnivores), and so on, according to their position in the food chain.