As you just learned, in real ecosystems, trophic efficiencies usually vary from about 5% to about 20%. as a result, net production diagrams for ecosystems have a pyramid shape. two key factors explain why trophic efficiencies are relatively low, and thus why net production diagrams are shaped like pyramids.

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Nikolai Ochoa

Biology

22 November, 23:52

As you just learned, in real ecosystems, trophic efficiencies usually vary from about 5% to about 20%. as a result, net production diagrams for ecosystems have a pyramid shape. two key factors explain why trophic efficiencies are relatively low, and thus why net production diagrams are shaped like pyramids.

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Tanya Roach · Answer 1

When energy passes from one trophic level to the next, I would guess that the two factors which decrease the total amount of energy from being passed up are:

1. An organism does not assimilate all the energy of food consumed. Within a consumer, digestion and assimilation of energy is not 100% efficient: some of the energy is lost.

2. A large proportion of energy assimilated by a producer and consumer is lost through respiration, i. e., day-to-day maintenance of metabolic processes.