Energy Loss Between Levels
Science · Ecosystems & Habitats · conceptual
Explain how energy is transferred between trophic levels in a food chain, why energy is lost at each stage, and use pyramids of biomass/numbers to represent this
What mastery looks like
- Explains that only about 10% of energy passes from one trophic level to the next
- Constructs a pyramid of biomass from data and explains its shape
- Identifies where energy is lost at each trophic level (heat, movement, waste)
- Explains why food chains rarely have more than five trophic levels
Check your understanding
If Energy Loss Between Levels was asked why there are so many more plants than foxes in a field, could they explain how energy gets lost at every step of a food chain and what that means for the size of each population?
Prerequisites
Required first
Unlocks (0 directly)
None.