EVERYDAY SCIENCE

Detailed explanation-1: -At each step up the food chain, only 10 percent of the energy is passed on to the next level, while approximately 90 percent of the energy is lost as heat. Teach your students how energy is transferred through an ecosystem with these resources.

Detailed explanation-2: -At ever step of a food chain or web, as much as 90% of useable energy is lost. This limits the length of food chains, as there is not enough energy available to support long chains. Energy is lost when organisms metabolize, move, and grow. Much of it is released into the environment as either heat or light.

Detailed explanation-3: -At each level, energy is lost directly as heat or in the form of waste and dead matter that go to the decomposers. Eventually, the decomposers metabolize the waste and dead matter, releasing their energy as heat also. Why does so much energy exit the food web between one trophic level and the next?

Detailed explanation-4: -The other 90% is used for life processes, such as photosynthesis, respiration, reproduction, digestion; and ultimately transformed into heat energy before the organism is ever consumed. This pattern of energy transfer continues with each successive level of the pyramid.

Detailed explanation-5: -ENERGY LOSS IN THE FOOD CHAIN AND FOOD WEB In a food chain, energy is lost in each step of the chain in two forms: first by the organism producing heat and doing work, and second, by the food that is not completely digested or absorbed.