Question

If 20 J of energy is trapped at the producer level, then how much energy will be available to peacock as food in the following chain?
plant→mice→snake→peacock
A. 0.02 J
B. 0.002 J
C. 0.2 J
D. 0.0002 J

Answer 1

Hint: Food chain is a network of links of food chains which begins at the producer organisms and ends at the decomposer or detritivores, apex predator species. Each level in the food chain represents a different trophic level. For example, A hawk eats a snake, which has eaten a frog, which has ingested a grasshopper, which has also ingested grass.

Complete answer:
Food chain is a crucial cycle of the environment as it helps in balancing the ecosystem. It also reveals how each organism depends on the other for survival i.e. shows an intricate relationship between them in the ecosystems. Without the food chain, the entire ecosystem can collapse. Also shows the energy transfer within the trophic levels.
The Foodchain has a law which is given by Raymond Lindeman. This law states that, during the transfer of organic food energy from one trophic level to the next higher level, only about ten percent of the transferred energy is stored as flesh. The other energy is lost during transpiration, broken down in respiration, etc
The question is solved as per the Ten Percent Law. Here we can see that the energy Trappe at the producer level i.e the plant is 20J, hence when the mice rat the plants it will receive only ten percent of the energy. The ten percent of energy received by the mice is of 2 J (ten percent of 20J). Then when we move forward the mice is then eaten by the snake, so the total amount of energy received by the snake is 0.2 J (ten percent of 2 J). Then when the snake is eaten by the peacock, the total energy received from the snake is 0.02 J (ten percent of 0.2J).
 Plant➡ Mice ➡ Snake ➡ Peacock

20J	20×10%	2×10%	0.2 ×10%
	2 J	0.2 J	0.02 J

Hence, the total amount of energy available to the peacock is 0.02 J.

Additional Information: The energy keeps on reducing as it moves to a higher level, as a result, it solely traps only 10%of the total energy. Energy is lost as metabolic heat when the organisms from one trophic level are consumed by organisms from the next level. The producers receive energy directly from the sun, whereas the secondary consumers get both directly from the primary consumers and indirectly from the producers and sun.

Note:
Though it has several benefits it also has disadvantages it also possesses qualitative data and doesn’t show any quantitative data, therefore, the exact amount of energy transferred from one trophic level to the next trophic level cannot be predicted as it doesn’t give any proper data.