There is an inverse relationship. In this order, from the producer to the consumer, the number of living organisms decreases, and this causes the continuation of organic matter in nature and the life cycle.
Feeding relationships eating or being eaten are called trophic interactions. In addition, some organisms, as foundation species, exert influence on a community not through their trophic interactions, but by causing physical changes in the environment. The interaction among organisms within or between overlapping niches can be characterized into five types of relationships: competition, predation, commensalism, mutualism and parasitism. A food web is the natural interconnection of food chains and a graphical representation of what-eats-what in an ecological community. Another name for food web is consumer-resource system. A predator-prey relationship keeps the populations of both species in balance. Competition is a relationship between organisms that strive for the same resources in the same place. Intraspecific competition occurs between members of the same species. It improves the species' adaptations. Because different species often inhabit the same spaces and share—or compete for—the same resources, they interact in a variety of ways, known collectively as symbiosis. There are four main symbiotic relationships: mutualism, commensalism, parasitism, and competition. Symbiosis is a close relationship between two organisms of different species in which at least one of the organisms benefits. For the other organism, the relationship may be beneficial or harmful, or it may have no effect. There are three basic types of symbiosis: mutualism, commensalism, and parasitism. The number of organisms at each level decreases relative to the level below because there is less energy available to support those organisms. The top level of an energy pyramid has the fewest organisms because it has the least amount of energy. The base of the pyramid is composed of species called autotrophs, the primary producers of the ecosystem. All other organisms in the ecosystem are consumers called heterotrophs, which either directly or indirectly depend on the primary producers for food energy.