When an animal dies their body is broken down by decomposers.

当动物死了之后，他们的身体会被分解者分解。

And if they like to eat or break down already-dead organisms, we call them decomposers like millipedes or fungi.

如果它们喜欢吃或分解已经死亡的生物，我们就称它们为分解者，比如千足虫或真菌。

Finally, decomposers like vultures, bacteria, and fungi act like the bulldozers that demolish an old building to make something new.

最后，像秃鹫、细菌和真菌这样的分解者就像推土机一样拆除旧建筑，建造新建筑。

Without insects, the biosphere — the living parts of the Earth — would rot because of the loss of insect decomposers.

如果没有昆虫，生物圈——地球上有生命的部分——将会因为失去昆虫分解者而腐烂。

In the countryside, many wood structures will be destroyed within a few decades, if not by fire, then by termites and other decomposers.

在农村，许多木结构将在几十年内被破坏，就算不是火灾，也会是白蚁和其他分解者。

When alligators—and all other creatures—die, decomposers, like bacteria and fungi, break down the dead bodies.

当鳄鱼和所有其他生物死亡时，分解者，如细菌和真菌，会分解尸体。

Completing the Cycle: Decomposers But what happens when an organism dies?

完成循环：分解者但是当有机体死亡时会发生什么？

The chain always ends with the top predator, which is not preyed upon by other organisms, but will be consumed by decomposers after death.

这个链条总是以顶端捕食者结束，它不会被其他生物捕食，但死后会被分解者吃掉。

And they also, and perhaps most pertinently from the human point of view, found evidence for one other part of such a food web: the decomposers.

分解者。

Here's where the decomposers come in, breaking down dead plants and animals and recycling their nutrients back into the soil, making them available for plants to use.

这就是分解者发挥作用的地方，分解死去的植物和动物，并将其养分回收回土壤中，供植物使用。

Decomposers are usually bacteria and fungi that break down dead plants and animals into nutrients in the soil that in turn help the plants at the beginning of the food chain to grow.

分解者通常是细菌和霉菌，它们会把死去的植物或者动物尸体分解，分解后的尸体会变成泥土中的养分，帮助食物链中的生产者——植物生长得更好。

So, swamps weren't pumping out as much oxygen as they used to, and, on top of that, decomposers finally appeared that were able to start breaking down all of the dead wood.

因此，沼泽不再像过去那样释放出那么多的氧气，除此之外，分解者终于出现了， 它们能够开始分解所有死木。