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Question
Distinguish between upright and inverted pyramids.
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Solution
| Sr. No. | Upright pyramid | Inverted pyramid |
| 1. | In an upright pyramid (e.g., a grassland and cropland ecosystem), biomass, the number of organisms, or the amount of energy decreases as one moves to successive higher trophic levels. | In an inverted pyramid, either the number of organisms increases (e.g., a tree ecosystem) or the biomass increases (e.g., a marine ecosystem) at successive trophic levels. |
| 2. | In an upright pyramid, the producers are more in number than the herbivores. | In the inverted pyramid, the number of producers is less, and the number of consumers is more than the number of producers. |
| 3. | The pyramid of energy is always upright. | The pyramid of numbers and the pyramid of biomass can be inverted. |
| 4. | The base bar, which includes producers, is the largest, while the bar at the vertex of the pyramid, which includes top consumers, is the smallest. | The base bar for producers is the smallest, while the vertex bar for top consumers is the largest (widest). |
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