Question

The conversion efficiency from herbivores to carnivores is the least efficient of the tropic levels with an average conversion of _____.

1) 1
2) 2
3) 3
4) 4
5) 5

Answer 1

The conversion efficiency from herbivores to carnivores is about 10%, meaning that carnivores will store about 1% of the original plant energy. This low efficiency is due to the second law of thermodynamics causing energy loss during energy transfer between trophic levels.

Step-by-step explanation:

The conversion efficiency from herbivores to carnivores is the least efficient of the trophic levels, with an average conversion of 10%. This is because when energy is passed from herbivores (primary consumers) to carnivores (secondary consumers), a significant amount of energy is used by the organism or released as heat due to metabolic processes. This inefficiency is further explained by the second law of thermodynamics, which states that whenever energy is converted from one form to another, there is an increase in entropy, leading to energy loss. Hence, a carnivore will store only about 1% of the total energy that was originally in the plant.

In the context of ecological efficiency and trophic level transfer efficiency (TLTE), if we take an example where primary producers produce 1600 kcal/m² and primary consumers have 900 kcal/m², the TLTE is calculated as (900/1600) × 100, resulting in 56.25%.