In a food pyramid, there is typically less biomass at the top (i.e., there are very few individual tertiary consumers, whereas there are numerous individual producers). In three to five sentences, explain this phenomenon, citing evidence relating to energy flow and how plants support ecosystems. write like a 8th grader

In a food pyramid, there are more producers (like plants) than consumers (like animals) because producers can make their own food through photosynthesis, while consumers have to eat other organisms. This means that there is more energy available at the bottom of the pyramid, where the producers are, because they can capture and store sunlight energy. As you move up the pyramid, there is less energy available because some of it is lost as heat when organisms respire or move. This is why there are few tertiary consumers at the top of the pyramid - there is not enough energy to support a large population of them. Plants are super important in ecosystems because they are the base of the food chain, providing energy for all other organisms to survive.