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(a) ‘The pyramid of energy is always upright.’ Explain.
(b) Explain with the help of labelled diagrams, the difference between an upright pyramid of biomass and an inverted pyramid of
biomass.

 

 

 

 
 
 
 
 

Answers (1)

a) Pyramid of energy is always upright, can never be inverted, because when energy flows from a particular trophic level to the next trophic level, some energy is always lost as heat at each step. Each bar in the energy pyramid indicates the amount of energy present at each trophic level in a given time or annually per unit area.

Energy at a lower trophic level is always more than at a higher level.

Transfer of energy follows 10 % law of energy transfer in which only 10 % of the energy is transferred to each trophic level from the lower trophic level and the amount of energy decreases at each successive trophic level.

For their energy demands, organisms at each trophic level depend on those at the lower trophic level.

b)

Upright pyramid of biomass can be found in forest and grassland ecosystems where producers are more in biomass than the herbivores, and herbivores are more in biomass than the carnivores while the inverted pyramid of biomass is seen in sea and ocean ecosystem as the biomass on the next trophic level is higher than the previous trophic level in an inverted pyramid-like biomass of fishes far exceeds that of phytoplankton

Posted by

Priyanka Kumari

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