Which of the following is a characteristic of a consumer organism?

A characteristic of a consumer organism is that it relies on other organisms for energy. Consumers are fundamentally different from producers, which create their own food through processes such as photosynthesis. Instead, consumers obtain their energy and nutrients by eating other organisms, which can include plants (herbivores), other animals (carnivores), or both (omnivores). This dependence on other living entities for sustenance is a key defining trait of consumer organisms, highlighting their role in food webs and ecosystems.

While competing for resources can be a behavior exhibited by consumers, it does not define them as consumers; competition is a broader ecological interaction that can involve producers as well. Absorbing nutrients from the soil is a characteristic of many plants and therefore applies to producers rather than consumers. Thus, the critical factor distinguishing consumers is their reliance on consuming other organisms for energy, making this option the most accurate among those presented.