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Q.Describe pyramid of energy with the help of diagram.

Maharashtra MsbshseMaharashtra HSC (MSBSHSE) Board 2024Subjective· 3mImportance★★★★★
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Figure — An upright pyramid of energy drawn as stacked horizontal tiers, each narrower going up, with usable
Figure — An upright pyramid of energy drawn as stacked horizontal tiers, each narrower going up, with usable

The pyramid of energy is always upright because usable energy inevitably decreases at each trophic transfer.

The pyramid of energy represents the amount (rate) of energy present/flowing at each trophic level of an ecosystem over a given time period (typically expressed as kcal/m2/year), with producers forming the broad base and successive consumer levels (primary, secondary, tertiary consumers) forming progressively narrower tiers above it. Because energy transfer between trophic levels is never 100% efficient — a large fraction of the energy taken in at one level is lost as heat through respiration, used in metabolism, or is simply not consumed by the next level (only roughly 10% is typically transferred, per the ten percent law) — the amount of energy available necessarily decreases at each successive step. As a result, unlike pyramids of numbers or biomass (which can sometimes be inverted, e.g., in a tree ecosystem or a parasitic food chain), the pyramid of energy is always u …

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