Final answer:
The difference between energy and biomass pyramids in ecosystems lies in their depiction of energy flow and organism mass. Energy pyramids illustrate 10% energy transfer efficiency to primary consumers and are always upright, while biomass pyramids can vary in shape and show the total organism mass which tends to decrease at higher trophic levels.
Step-by-step explanation:
The primary difference between energy and biomass pyramids in ecosystems is the representation of energy flow and the mass of organisms. In an energy pyramid, producers may have 1,000,000 kilocalories, but only a fraction of this energy, typically around 10%, is available to primary consumers due to energy loss at each trophic level. This loss occurs because energy is dispersed as heat through metabolism and other processes. As such, energy pyramids are always upright.
On the other hand, biomass pyramids represent the total mass of living organisms at each trophic level. The biomass typically decreases from lower to higher levels due to the inefficiency of energy transfer, resulting in fewer organisms of larger size and thus lower total biomass as you move up the pyramid. However, the shape of the biomass pyramid can vary; it could be inverted, upright, or even diamond-shaped depending on the ecosystem, such as the inverted pyramid seen with phytoplankton in the English Channel.
These ecological pyramids illustrate how biomass is converted from one trophic level to the next with less efficiency, resulting in less energy and biomass higher up the pyramid. Energy pyramids provide a consistent and representative model for studying energy flow through an ecosystem.