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Question
"Energy flow in a food chain is unidirectional" Justify this statement.
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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.
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