The breakdown of organic matter and their conversion into basic inorganic forms is called mineralization.

Decomposers are the organisms (e.g., bacteria, fungi, crabs) that breakdown organic constituents (e.g., plant material) to release carbon and other nutrients such as nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) as inorganic form.

When an organism dies, decomposers decay or breakdown his body chemically and extract the last bit of energy from it.