How do living and nonliving things interact? Non living objects in an ecosystem includes rocks, water, soil etc, and living things include plants and animals. There are many ways that these things can interact whether the non living things can be source of food or drink to living things. The Sun is down at the bottom of the food chain because it's energy powers all plants and the animals eat the plants so that how they get nutrients and that's why the sun is on the food chain.