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.?
The phenomenon can be explained by the laws of energy flow in ecosystems. Only approximately 10% of the energy from one trophic level (i.e., level in a food pyramid) is passed on to the next level. This means that as you move up the pyramid, there is less energy available to support individual organisms. Plants, which are primary producers, support entire ecosystems by converting sunlight into usable energy via photosynthesis. This allows them to provide a large amount of biomass to support herbivores, which in turn support carnivores, but there are only so many predators that can be supported by the limited energy available at each level.
