Discover nature this week with Missouri's natural decomposers. Recycling is critical in our “throwaway society” -- and the same is also true in nature. Living things play one of three roles in their environments: • Green plants are producers, trapping the sun’s energy in food. • Most animals are consumers (like water fleas, snails, tadpoles, and beavers found in pond ecosystems) meaning they eat the food provided by green plants. • And the third role -- and one most overlooked -- is that of the