BRAINCAKEEnergy Losses between Consumers
When a consumer eats, only a small part of the energy in its food ends up in its own body tissues, where it is available to the next trophic level. Typically only around 10% is transferred between consumer levels. Energy is lost in several ways:
- Not all of the organism is eaten: roots, bones, fur and shells are often left, and pass to decomposers.
- Not all food is digested: indigestible material is lost in faeces (egestion). Herbivores lose a large fraction this way because they cannot digest much of the cellulose in plant cell walls.
- Excretion: some energy is lost in urine as urea, and in methane from the gut of cattle.
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More in The Efficiency of Ecosystems
- Pyramid of Numbers
- Pyramid of Biomass
- Inverted Pyramids of Numbers
- Energy Losses in Producers
- Efficiency of Energy Transfer
- Gross Primary Productivity
- Net Primary Productivity
- The Limitations of Efficiency Calculations
All 20 lessons in The Efficiency of Ecosystems · All Edexcel A-level Biology topics