I was really confused by this question?
Considering the energy pyramid, where does the energy go or where is it used as you go from producers to tertiary consumers?
If you type this into google it will lead you to a website that explains it better.
If you consider a pyramid of numbers, you may get confusing results, ... The best approach is to use pyramids of biomass, which include the total mass of living ... an organism which can be a secondary or a tertiary consumer ... What percentage of the light energy did the producers incorporate into their biomass? ...
To answer your question about the energy flow in the context of an energy pyramid, let's first understand the concept of an energy pyramid. An energy pyramid is a graphical representation that illustrates the flow of energy through different trophic levels within an ecosystem.
In an ecosystem, primary producers (such as plants) convert sunlight energy into chemical energy through photosynthesis. This stored energy is then passed on to herbivores, or primary consumers, which feed directly on the producers.
The energy flow continues as secondary consumers (carnivores or omnivores) consume herbivores for energy. Finally, tertiary consumers (top carnivores) obtain energy by consuming other secondary consumers.
As you move up the energy pyramid from lower trophic levels to higher ones, the amount of available energy decreases significantly. This happens due to energy loss at each trophic level, mainly through metabolic processes, heat exchange, and incomplete digestion.
Here is a simplified breakdown of how energy is used or lost as you go from producers to tertiary consumers:
1. Producers (plants): Producers convert sunlight into chemical energy through photosynthesis, capturing approximately 1% of the available energy. They utilize this energy for growth, reproduction, and other metabolic processes.
2. Primary consumers (herbivores): Herbivores consume the plants to obtain energy for their own growth and metabolic needs. However, only about 10% of the energy captured by the plants is transferred to primary consumers, as the remaining energy is used by the plants for maintenance and cellular respiration.
3. Secondary consumers (carnivores or omnivores): Secondary consumers feed on primary consumers to satisfy their energy requirements. Again, only about 10% of the energy from primary consumers is transferred to the secondary consumers due to energy losses during digestion, locomotion, and other metabolic activities.
4. Tertiary consumers (top carnivores): Tertiary consumers, at the highest trophic level, derive energy by consuming other secondary consumers. Similar to the previous levels, energy is lost during digestion and metabolism. As a result, only around 10% of the energy from secondary consumers is available to tertiary consumers.
This gradual loss of energy at each trophic level is the reason why food chains and ecosystems typically have a limited number of trophic levels. It becomes challenging to sustain higher trophic levels because there is less available energy to support them.
So, to summarize, as you move from producers to tertiary consumers in an energy pyramid, the available energy decreases at each trophic level due to energy loss in metabolic processes, resulting in a smaller amount of energy being used or transferred to the higher trophic levels.