Final answer:
The total amount of energy captured from the sun by the producers in an ecosystem is called the gross primary productivity. It is the energy harnessed by primary producers such as plants and algae through photosynthesis before accounting for metabolic use. Net primary productivity is what remains for consumers after producers' energy consumption.
Step-by-step explanation:
The total amount of energy captured from the sun by the producers in an ecosystem is called the gross primary productivity. This represents the rate at which photosynthetic primary producers, like plants and algae, incorporate solar energy. However, it's important to distinguish this from net primary productivity, which is the energy that remains after the producers have used some for their own metabolic processes such as respiration and growth.
Ecosystems depend on this energy transfer, starting from the primary producers that convert solar energy into chemical energy. The remaining energy after producers' use is what moves on to the primary consumers in the ecosystem. Quantifying these productivity rates allows researchers to understand the efficiency of energy transfer in an ecosystem, such as in the Silver Springs aquatic ecosystem example, where the gross primary productivity was 20,810 kcal/m²/yr, with 7,633 kcal/m²/yr remaining for primary consumers after accounting for energy spent by producers.