Question

If one million kilocalories of energy are stored in producers in an ecosystem, how many kilocalories can be transferred to tertiary consumers in the ecosystem? show the calculations that support your answer.

Answer 1

Answer:

10000 kilocalories is  transferred to tertiary consumers in the ecosystem

Explanation:

A normal ecosystem has following stages -

a) Trophic level I -  Producer provides energy to primary consumer

b) Trophic level II - Primary consumer provides energy to secondary consumer

c) Trophic level III - Secondary consumer provides energy to tertiary consumer

As per the energy rule of food chain, at each trophic level 90% of the energy is retained and only 10% of energy is passes on to neenst trophic level.

Thus, if the energy at trophic level I is one million kilocalories

Energy at trophic level II will be $10$% of $1000000$kilocalories

$= \frac{10}{100} * 1000000\\= 100000$ kilocalories

Energy at trophic level III will be $10$% of $100000$kilocalories

$= \frac{10}{100} * 100000\\= 10000$ kilocalories

Thus, 10000 kilocalories is  transferred to tertiary consumers in the ecosystem

Answer 2

The answer is 1000 kilocarolies.  It is important to keep in mind that Energy is passed up the food chain from one trophic level to the next but a lot of it is lost along the way. Energy is passed up the food chain from one trophic level to the next. However, only about 10% of the total energy stored in organisms at one trophic level is actually transferred to organisms at the next trophic level. Therefore; if the producers have 1 million kilocarolies, then  the energy transferred to the primary consumer will be 100,000 kilocalories (10% of a million), and the energy transferred to the secondary consumer will be 10,000 kilocalories (10% of 100,000) and the energy to the tertiary consumer will be 1000 kilocarolies (10% of 10,000).