Question

In the following food chain, 20,000 J of energy was available to the plants. How much energy would be available to man in this chain? Plants → Sheep → Man

Answer 1

Answer:

energy available to plants is 20000 j , energy available to sheep's is 30000 and man is 10000 to 15000 j

Answer 2

20 J of energy for man.

Explanation:

A food chain is the path of transfer of food from the producers to the consumers. Plants are producers and animals are consumers. According to the 10% Rule on the flow of energy through a food chain, only 10% of the energy is transferred when food passes from one trophic level to the next. The remaining 90% of the energy is lost to the surroundings in the form of heat and some is used by the organism itself for its life process.

So, given that 20000 J of energy was available to the plants.

Food chain being Plants --> Sheep --> Man

Actual energy that gets transferred to plants from the ecosystem will be 10% of what is available. So it will be 2000 J.

Now, Sheeps will get 10% of the energy available in plants, so that would be 200 J.

Now passing to the next trophic will be 10% of what was available in sheep. So that would be only 20 J of energy for man.