Advertisements
Advertisements
Question
"Energy flow in a food chain is unidirectional" Justify this statement.
Advertisements
Solution 1
The producers convert solar energy into chemical energy in the form of organic compounds. The primary consumers (herbivores) derive their nutrition from the producers. According to the energy transfer law, only 10% of energy is transferred from one trophic level to the other. So, the energy that is captured by the producers does not revert back to the Sun and the energy transferred to the herbivores does not come back to the producers. It just keeps on moving to the next trophic level in a unidirectional way. That is why the flow of energy in the food chain is always unidirectional.
Solution 2
The flow of energy in the ecosystem is said to be unidirectional because the energy lost as heat from the living organisms of a food chain cannot be reused by plants in photosynthesis.
APPEARS IN
RELATED QUESTIONS
What will be the amount of energy available to the organisms of the 2nd trophic level of a food chain if the energy available at the first trophic level is 10,000 joules?
What will happen if we kill all the organisms in one trophic level?
Why are plants called producers?
A student went to study a local pond. In one part of the pond she noticed tadpoles scraping at some pond weed. In another part she saw a water beetle holding a tadpole in its jaws.
(a) Construct a food chain for the pond.
(b) How many links are there in this chain?
The sea water contains water beetles, tadpole, fish and weeds.
Write a food chain comprising all the given organisms.
The sea water contains water beetles, tadpole, fish and weeds.
Which organisms can trap solar energy to make food?
Which of the following limits the number of trophic levels in a food chain?
(a) insufficient food supply from producer level
(b) decrease in energy at higher trophic levels
(c) increase in the number of organisms at higher trophic levels
(d) accumulation of harmful chemicals at higher trophic levels
An aquatic food chain comprises of the organisms like tadpoles, weeds, fish and water beetles. The organism which gets the minimum energy through this food chain is :
(a) water beetles
(b) tadpoles
(c) weeds
(d) fish
The ten per cent law is associated with
(a) transfer of energy from various trophic levels to decomposers in a food chain
(b) transfer of ATP energy into muscular energy
(c) transfer of chemical energy from one organism to another
(d) transfer of sun's energy to the organisms called producers.
Accumulation of non-biodegradable pesticides in the food chain in increasing amount at each higher trophic level is known as
