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Ecology and desert ecology have focused on feeding relationships within assemblages of organisms and/or the relationships of plants to the animals that feed on them. Major differences in the structure of ecosystems are a function of the proportion of net primary production that is consumed as a live tissue and that which is processed as a dead material. Energy flow through consumer populations sets constraints on a number of trophic levels in each ecosystem. Energy is analogous to the currency of ecosystems. To understand ecosystem dynamics, a considerable effort is expended on understanding trophic relationships and the flow of energy through ecosystems. A large amount of the recent work on competition, predation, symbiosis, co-evolution, and sociobiology focuses on characteristics of the sources of energy required by the subject organisms, the ways in which these organisms obtain that energy, and the organisms with whom they interact either directly or indirectly in that pursuit. These are all fascinating topics and relate either directly or indirectly to important processes in desert ecosystems