AP BIOLOGY

Detailed explanation-1: -The best model that illustrates the flow of energy and matter in an ecosystem is a food web. A food web is made up of interconnected food chains. It is more complex and much larger than a food chain since it shows the feeding relationships of many producers and consumers at each trophic level.

Detailed explanation-2: -The energy flow takes place via the food chain and food web.

Detailed explanation-3: -At the base of the pyramid are the producers, who use photosynthesis or chemosynthesis to make their own food. Herbivores or primary consumers, make up the second level. Secondary and tertiary consumers, omnivores and carnivores, follow in the subsequent sections of the pyramid.

Detailed explanation-4: -Primary producers use energy from the sun to produce their own food in the form of glucose, and then primary producers are eaten by primary consumers who are in turn eaten by secondary consumers, and so on, so that energy flows from one trophic level, or level of the food chain, to the next.