Energy Pyramid

As energy is moved from organism to organism, from trophic level to the next, there is a loss of usable energy.

A large amount of energy needs to be converted to biomass energy per unit time at the primary producer level to support the herbivores, multiple levels of carnivores and the detritivores and recycling community.

The drop in available usable energy with each increase in trophic level is called the Energy Pyramid.

Biomass by trophic level

The amount of biomass in the different trophic levels at any time doesn't necessarily have to be the same as the energy pyramid.

The rate of biomass production, and thus potential transfer, is the population size times the growth rate:

there can be equivalent production rates with

high biomass and slow growth rates

small biomass and very rapid growth rates

Examples:

Terrestrial ecosystems such as grasslands or forests often have the most biomasss in the primary producers.

Aquatic ecosystems sometimes have very rapidly growing populations of algae which are grazed to low levels by the zooplankton. The algae still process about 10 times as much energy as the zooplankton.