Food Chains and Food Webs

How energy moves through an ecosystem.

Food Chain

A food chain is a diagram that shows one particular example of energy flow through an ecosystem. Includes one organism per trophic level. Trophic level - place in the food chain based on separation from the sun

Food Web

Shows how energy flows through the community. Show more than one organism per trophic level

 Not all solar energy an autotroph converts is usable to heterotrophs. Some of that energy is used by the autotroph. Some energy from the heterotroph is also required to digest and store energy they consumed. Therefore, there must be more energy stored in the 1st trophic level than the 2nd, and more energy in the 2nd trophic level than the 3rd.

Rule of 10%

In general 10% of the energy and biomass stored in one trophic level can be passed on to the next trophic level. This can diagramed using energy and biomass pyramids.

Energy Pyramid