Question

Energy flow in an ecosystem is
(A) Unidirectional
(B) Bidirectional
(C) Multi directional
(D) All of the above

Answer 1

Hint: Energy flow is defined as the passing of energy from one organism to another in an ecosystem. Ecosystem is defined as the system of living and nonliving components and their interactions between them.

Complete answer:
The energy flow is the term related to flow of an energy from one organism to another. Ecosystem is the system where living and nonliving components interact with each other.
First of all, sunlight energy is used by the producer for synthesizing their food by the process of photosynthesis. Carbon dioxide and water are also involved in this process and glucose is the product. Glucose provides energy to the organism because breakdown of glucose by means of respiration leads to release of energy in the form of ATP. Producer acts as the lowest level in the ecological pyramid of energy.

According to Lindeman’s law of energy, 10% of energy is transferred from one level of ecological pyramid to another level. Because most of the energy is released in the form of heat and it is also utilized in performing the metabolic activities of organisms. That’s why there will be transferring of less energy from one trophic level to another trophic level. And the organisms which are found at the top most trophic level will get less energy as compared to previous trophic levels.

Hence, we can say that the less energy is transferred to the next trophic level. That’s why the flow of energy in an ecosystem is described as the direction of energy from the sun to the producer and then to the next level of the pyramid of energy.
That’s why flow of energy in the ecosystem is unidirectional in nature.

Hence, the correct answer is option (A).

Note: Energy flow in an ecosystem is always unidirectional in nature because most of energy is released at the trophic level in the form of heat and performing metabolic activities. Hence 10% is transferred from one trophic level to another. This makes unidirectional flow of energy.