Question

If a secondary consumer receives 100 units of energy from primary consumers, how much energy approximately originated from the producers?

Options

• 10 units

• 100 units

• 10,000 units

• 1,000 units

Answer 1

Using the 10% law in reverse: primary consumers receive 10% of producer energy, and secondary consumers receive 10% of primary consumer energy. Therefore, if secondary consumers have 100 units, primary consumers had 1,000 units, and producers originally had 10,000 units. This demonstrates the exponential energy loss through trophic transfers.