LIFE SCIENCE

Detailed explanation-1: -As you move up the pyramid, through the trophic levels to primary, secondary and tertiary consumers, the amount of energy decreases and the levels become smaller. While energy can not be created or destroyed is it released as heat within each level. Approximately only 10% of energy is passed from one level to the next.

Detailed explanation-2: -Energy Flow Through an Ecosystem Secondary and tertiary consumers, omnivores and carnivores, follow in the subsequent sections of the pyramid. 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.

Detailed explanation-3: -When you look at an energy pyramid, the size of each level represents the energy available to organisms in that level. Once you get to the top, there isn’t much energy available and it’s difficult to sustain a large population.

Detailed explanation-4: -Ecological pyramids model energy loss In most ecosystems, only about 10% of the total energy available at a given trophic level is transferred to the next level. The rest is used to power life processes, is discarded as waste, or is simply not consumed.