An orange roughy fish is a fourth-level consumer that requires almost ten times the amount of food available from the primary producers in the ecosystem. Why isn't more energy available from the primary producers? Primary producers are not very efficient and lose most of their energy to the environment. There is too much competition from other fourth-level consumers, leaving very little available to the orange roughy. Only a fraction of energy is passed through each level, so there is less available to upper-level consumers. The energy flow is unbalanced and tends to move toward the lower levels.

Question

Shannon

Biology

16 January, 00:12

An orange roughy fish is a fourth-level consumer that requires almost ten times the amount of food available from the primary producers in the ecosystem. Why isn't more energy available from the primary producers? Primary producers are not very efficient and lose most of their energy to the environment. There is too much competition from other fourth-level consumers, leaving very little available to the orange roughy. Only a fraction of energy is passed through each level, so there is less available to upper-level consumers. The energy flow is unbalanced and tends to move toward the lower levels.

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Quinton Berry · Answer 1

C. Only a fraction of energy is passed through each level, so there is less available to upper-level consumers. The energy flow is unbalanced and tends to move toward the lower levels

Explanation:

About 50% of the energy (possibly as much as 90%) in food is lost at each trophic level when an organism is eaten, so it is less efficient to be a higher order consumer than a primary consumer.