Increases in entropy lead to _______.
The average conversion energy from producers to primary consumers is _______.
Bacteria in soil feed on _______.
Which of the following statements about energy and trophic levels is not true?
Which of the following organisms is located only in the 3rd trophic level of the soil food web?
Explain how the biomass of a species is limited by their trophic level.
Only ~10% of energy is transferred to each successive trophic level (the 10% rule). Therefore higher trophic levels receive far less total energy, supporting lower biomass of organisms at those levels.
Put the following organisms in an aquatic food chain in the order in which energy flows through them, explaining the reason for their placement.small fish, mammal, phytoplankton, zooplankton
phytoplankton → zooplankton → small fish → mammal. Energy flows from producers (phytoplankton) to primary consumers (zooplankton) to secondary consumers (small fish) to tertiary consumers (mammal).
What limits the amount of work that a system can do?
The amount of usable (free) energy; increases in entropy reduce the fraction of energy available to perform work.
Explain how entropy relates to the amount of energy that is available in the different trophic levels of a food chain.
Entropy increases with every energy transfer between trophic levels. Because usable energy is lost as heat, less energy remains available for work at higher trophic levels.
Relate the concept of gross and net production to the concept of energy conversion.
Gross production is the total energy captured by producers. Net production is gross production minus energy lost to respiration. The difference between gross and net production determines the efficiency of energy conversion to the next trophic level (~10%).
What limits the amount of work that a system can do?
The amount of work a system can do is limited by the energy available to perform useful work. As energy is dispersed and entropy increases, some energy becomes unavailable for work, often because it has been dissipated as heat.
Which of the following organisms is located only in the 3rd trophic level of the soil food web?
Which of the following statements about energy and trophic levels is not true?
Explain how entropy relates to the amount of energy that is available in the different trophic levels of a food chain.
At each energy transfer, entropy increases as some energy becomes dispersed, often as heat. That energy is less available to do biological work, so less usable energy is available at higher trophic levels.
Explain how the biomass of a species is limited by their trophic level.
Biomass is limited by trophic level because only a small fraction of the energy in one level is transferred to the next. Much of the energy is used for life processes or lost as heat, so less energy is available to support biomass at higher trophic levels.
Increases in entropy lead to _______.
Bacteria in soil feed on _______.
Put the following organisms in an aquatic food chain in the order in which energy flows through them, explaining the reason for their placement.small fish, mammal, phytoplankton, zooplankton
Phytoplankton → zooplankton → small fish → mammal. Phytoplankton are producers that capture energy, zooplankton feed on them, small fish eat zooplankton, and the mammal is the top consumer in this chain.
Relate the concept of gross and net production to the concept of energy conversion.
Gross production is the total energy captured or converted into biomass. Organisms use some of this energy for respiration and other metabolic processes, so net production is the energy remaining and stored as new biomass. The difference between gross and net production reflects energy lost during conversion, often as heat.
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