When you speak in terms of organisms, producers are essentially plants. They are organisms that are able to directly capture the energy of the sun and soil and turn it into something that will give energy to others. Some of the plants commonly found in grasslands are grass, shrubs, moss and lichen and some trees. There are also tiny producers in the form of cyanobacteria - that is, bacteria that live in water and are able to photosynthesize energy from the sun.
Consumers are primarily animals. They are organisms that must consume another organism - animal, plant or both - in order to gain energy. Grassland consumers are plentiful. There are insects like butterflies, grasshoppers, crickets and beetles. There are bluebirds, sparrows, warblers, meadowlarks and many other plant-consuming birds. Small mammals such as rabbits, mice, voles, gophers and marmots inhabit holes in the ground and provide food to larger consumers. Many of these animals live off grass seeds rather than the grass itself.
Perhaps the largest consumer to inhabit the grasslands is a plant-eating herbivore: deer. Deer graze on both grass and leaves, being one of the few mammals able to properly digest grass. Other larger consumers occupy the next step up the food chain, which is to say that they are predatory carnivores: hawks and owls in the air; foxes, coyotes, weasels and snakes on the ground. The abundance of small mammals such as mice and rabbits make the grasslands good hunting grounds.
A final category of consumers are the creatures that live in the earth itself. They eat plant matter and help the process of decomposition by which dead plants and animals return their nutrients to the soil, making it fertile and able to grow producing plants. Though not often seen, they are a vital part of any ecosystem. Earthworms, insects, bacteria and fungi are some decomposers that can be found in prolific amounts in any square foot of grassland soil.
