Question

Why only about 10% of the energy in the cereal crop is transferred to organisms that eat the crop?

Answer 1

Answer:

Energy transfer

Energy is transferred along food chains from one trophic level to the next. However, the amount of available energy decreases from one trophic level to the next.

Energy loss

In a food chain only around 10 per cent of the energy is passed on to the next trophic level. The rest of the energy passes out of the food chain in a number of ways:

• it is used as heat energy
• it is used for life processes (eg movement)
• faeces and remains are passed to decomposers
• Less energy is transferred at each level of the food chain so the biomass gets smaller. As a result, there are usually fewer than five trophic levels in food chains.