Nothing is wasted

Living things grow, work, develop and die, and along the way they make a lot of waste: dead matter, droppings, leftover food. Where does it all go? Nature has no dustbin.

In the rainy season you may have seen little umbrella shapes, mushrooms, growing on dead plants or trees. They are a type of fungi that grow on dead matter.

Microorganisms such as fungi and bacteria break the complex substances in dead plants and animals down into simpler ones, and that returns important nutrients to the soil.

Tiny insects help too: beetles and flies on animal droppings, such as elephant dung, break them down and recycle the nutrients back into the environment.

This process is decomposition. The organisms that do it are decomposers, also called saprotrophs (sapro = rotten, troph = food). They are nature's cleaners.

Why does it matter so much? Plants grow in soil, and many of the soil's nutrients come from decomposition. So decomposers are essential for recycling nutrients: what a plant takes from the soil goes back after it dies. Without them, dead matter would pile up, its nutrients would stay locked inside, and plants would starve.

In nature, nothing is wasted: everything is reused. Something similar links whole habitats. Migratory birds fly thousands of kilometres to reach habitats in India, escaping harsh weather and looking for food. On the way they pollinate and spread seeds, linking the two habitats, and they eat insect pests, which helps farmers and, indirectly, the crops. Demoiselle Cranes visit the water body of Khichan village in Jodhpur district every winter. (A bird you see near you in only one season may well be a migratory bird.)