Question

Energy transfer from one trophic level to another is
A. 10%
B. 5%
C. 15%
D. 20%

Answer 1

Hint: In the ecosystem, the primary producers are dependent on the solar energy and the primary consumers on the producers, the secondary consumers on the primary consumer, and the tertiary on the secondary consumers, and these are called the five trophic levels of the ecosystem.

Step by step answer:Energy is produced by all the organisms at all the trophic levels as they consume food and convert that into energy and which is passed onto the next trophic level organisms when consumed as food. During this process, the energy level is lost on passing on through every trophic level in the ecosystem and the energy that is transferred from one trophic level to the other is around 10% and the remaining amount of energy is lost in the metabolic process of the food processing in the form of heat. Thus the highest energy will be with the primary produces and decreases by 10% at each trophic level and thus the tertiary consumers will have the lowest energy transferred from the earlier trophic levels. Energy can pass from one trophic level to the next when organic molecules from an organism's body are eaten by another organism and the energy transfer is inefficient because not all the organisms at lower trophic levels are consumed as food sources for the next trophic level, some molecules in the bodies of organisms are not digestible by predators and are lost in the digestive process, some molecules are used in cellular respiration instead of being stored as biomass.
Hence, the correct answer is option (A).

Note: The two terms that are important in the energy transfer are productivity that is the rate at which energy in the form of biomass is added to the primary producers and gross productivity which is the overall rate of energy capture.