All detritus is ultimately consumed by microbes and other scavengers,

But it's not. All detritus is ultimately consumed by microbes and other scavengers,so it actually forms the base of the brown food chain that supports many other organisms,
including us.Scientists are learning that this detritus is an unexpectedly huge energy source,fueling most natural ecosystems.But the interactions within an ecosystem
are even more complex than that.What a food chain really represents is a single pathway of energy flow. And within any ecosystem,many of these flows
are linked together to form a rich network of interactions, or food web, with dead matter supporting that network at every step.