Seattle Business Daily

Why is energy at the top of the trophic level less than the bottom of the pyramid?

Public Comments

1. Thanks to Thermodynamics, some energy is lost as it is passed from one trophic level to the next. Also, much of the energy gained at each trophic level is "used," and thus is lost to the environment (as heat). This is why food chains are rarely more than 4 trophic levels high.
2. this is due to the fact that the energy gained by consuming the organism at the lower trophic level is not all transferred to the next trophic level. the organism goes through its life processes utilizing energy to move, interact, reproduce, etc so it gets used up before that organism gets eaten by the next organism up the food chain. and then alot of energy is simply lost in conversions and metaboilc processes.