What happens to remaining energy in the food chain...??

Question

only about 10 percent of the energy in the food that is eaten by a consumer is available to the next consumer in the food chain. What happens to the remaining energy in the food chain?

Answer 1

i get it....u are talking about the TEN PERCENT LAW.....

it goes like......1000joules of energy of light energy is consumed by the first trophic level...i.e.the plants.....10 joules of energy is available to the green plants as food.990 joules is lost to the environment.

now if this green plant is eaten by the herbivore...then that 10 joules of energy will be cinsumed by te herbivore.the herbi. takes i joule of this energy as his food and 9 joules are lost to the environment.

again...if this herbi. is consumed by a carnivore...he will consume that i joule of energy,0.9 will be lost to the environment and 0.1 will be available to the carnivore as his food.

so.....finally this 0.9 joules of energy is given to the environment.so basically the remaining energy is lost to the environment.

Answer 2

Kinda like a pyramid.  The bottom is wide, many sources of energy (plant life) that take nutrients combine them with water use the bonding of the suns rays and convert that to matter.  This matter is then consumed by animals (grazers and browsers), who in turn are fed upon by predators.  With man as the top predator.

Take a few seeds from wire-grass.  Wire-grass grows in many natural communities, it is eaten by rodents and birds, like Quail.  Quail are eaten by snakes, who are eaten by hawks, bobcats, and raccoons.  

every time the meal is transferred from one critter to the next, energy is expended in the chase (heat) and capture, and energy is always being used for the animals to survive day by day.

Back in college, I took a Population Ecology course and there was this formula that could measure the amounts of energy wasted and used in each transfer.  

I can't remember that formula.

Answer 3

it gets flushed down the toilet and washed out to sea