Question

Which statement describes the relationship between the law of conservation of energy and the energy pyramid shown?

1) The amount of available energy decreases as you move up the pyramid because some energy is transferred to the environment as heat.
2) The environment can sustain more organisms as the trophic level increases because more energy conversions have taken place.
3) The number of grasshoppers exceeds the number of rats because their source of energy is the sun and fewer energy conversions have taken place.
4) The population of tertiary consumers is greater than that of the secondary consumers because they occupy the highest trophic level in the energy pyramid.

Answer 1

The amount of available energy decreases as you move up the energy pyramid, due to the transfer of energy to the environment as heat, in accordance with the law of conservation of energy.

Step-by-step explanation:

The law of conservation of energy states that energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed. In terms of the energy pyramid, this principle explains why there is a decrease in energy as one moves from lower to higher trophic levels. If producers have 1,000,000 kilocalories of energy to offer, primary consumers will only receive about 10% of that energy, or 100,000 kilocalories, due to the loss of 90% of the energy at each level mainly because of metabolic activities and heat transfer to the environment.

Therefore, the correct statement that describes this relationship is: 1) The amount of available energy decreases as you move up the pyramid because some energy is transferred to the environment as heat.