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In marshes, this role has mostly been attributed to heterotrophs, or bacteria that grow and get their energy from organic carbon.

Mushrooms, yeast, and some algae are heterotrophs, organisms that consume other plants or animals for their nutrition and are naturally able to grow in the dark.

Plant–heterotroph interplay is likely to be nuanced, given how long most of the partners have been at it.

The reactors actually contain a mini ecosystem that includes other species of bacteria, known as heterotrophs, which mop up metabolic products that would otherwise slow Methylococcus’s growth.

In particular, they found an unusual community of bacteria there called heterotrophs, or microbes that cannot produce their own food and must eat what they find in the water.