EVERYDAY SCIENCE

Detailed explanation-1: -Energy decreases as it moves up trophic levels because energy is lost as metabolic heat when the organisms from one trophic level are consumed by organisms from the next level.

Detailed explanation-2: -Not all the energy is passed from one level of the food chain to the next. About 90 per cent of energy may be lost as heat (released during respiration), through movement, or in materials that the consumer does not digest. The energy stored in undigested materials can be transferred to decomposers.

Detailed explanation-3: -The amount of energy at each trophic level decreases as it moves through an ecosystem. As little as 10 percent of the energy at any trophic level is transferred to the next level; the rest is lost largely through metabolic processes as heat.

Detailed explanation-4: -Within all biological communities, energy at each trophic level is lost in the form of heat (as much as 80 to 90 percent), as organisms expend energy for metabolic processes such as staying warm and digesting food (see biosphere: The organism and the environment: Resources of the biosphere: The flow of energy).

Detailed explanation-5: -An ecological pyramid (also trophic pyramid, Eltonian pyramid, energy pyramid, or sometimes food pyramid) is a graphical representation designed to show the biomass or bioproductivity at each trophic level in a given ecosystem.