Question

What is the rule of 10 within the energy pyramid? in biology the ecosystem

Answer 1

The rule of 10 in the energy pyramid implies that only about 10 percent of energy is transferred from one trophic level to the next higher level in an ecosystem, with the rest being lost to metabolic processes or heat, culminating in fewer organisms and less biomass at higher levels.

Step-by-step explanation:

The rule of 10 within an energy pyramid refers to the observation that only about 10 percent of the energy at one trophic level is passed on to the next higher level. To illustrate, if producers in an ecological pyramid have 1,000,000 kilocalories of energy, then primary consumers would only receive 100,000 kilocalories of energy. The remaining 90 percent is used for metabolic processes or lost as heat to the environment. This decrease in energy availability at higher trophic levels results in fewer organisms and less biomass.

Energy pyramids are always upright because the flow of energy only goes in one direction – up the trophic levels from producers to consumers – and is diminished at each step due to energy losses, mostly as metabolic heat. This is different from the pyramids of numbers or biomass, which can take on different shapes, including inverted or diamond-shaped, depending on the ecosystem.

Higher trophic levels have insufficient energy to support large populations, thereby limiting the number of trophic levels in an ecosystem. This understanding of energy transfer and biomass distribution is crucial for studying ecosystem dynamics and the structure of an ecosystem.

Answer 2

The " Rule of ten " is referring to the decreasing amount of kylo calories as you go down the food chain. The producer has the most energy, around one million, the primary consumer gets 10% of that, the secondary consumer gets 10% of the primary consumer's energy, and so on and so on