Plants and animals need each other

Plants and animals need each other

Plants and animals trade with each other. They trade for things they
both need to stay alive.

Animals breathe air. The air gets changed inside their bodies. When they
breathe the air out again there’s something called carbon in it. Animals
can’t use this air again. But plants need carbon. They take the carbon
out of the air—and then animals can breathe the air again. The plants
trade fresh air for the carbon they need.

Plants make food from carbon and water. They use sunlight for this work,
just as a machine uses gasoline or electricity to keep running. The
plants store the food they make inside themselves. Many animals eat
plants and then the animals’ bodies store up the food that was in the
plants. Other animals, such as foxes, wolves, and lions, eat animals
that eat plants and get the plant food that’s stored in the animals’
bodies. So plants are really feeding all animals.

But what do the plants get in return? Many things. Plants make food from
the carbon and other things that come from animals’ bodies. The animals
we call insects carry pollen from one flower to another and the pollen
forms seeds. Birds and other animals eat the fruit in which seeds grow
and often drop the seeds where they can sprout into new plants. So
animals help make new plants grow.

Plants and animals need each other. They couldn’t stay alive without
each other.

Bumblebee

As a bee gets food from a flower, yellow dust called pollen falls on
its body.

The pollen rubs off on other flowers the bee goes to, and makes new
seeds grow.