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I need to draw an energy pyramid for a five-step food chain. If 100% of the energy is available at the first trophic level, what percentage of the total energy is available at the highest trophic level?

Answer 1

Though not an absolute rule, the "rule of thumb" is that 10% of the energy flows to the next trophic level, and 90% is "lost" through metabolism.

Factors of ten are simple to handle; simply move the decimal point over:

1%, 10%, 1%, 0.1%, 0.01%, and 100% at level 1, level 2, and level 3.

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Answer 2

Evan Abrahamson

In a five-step food chain, each trophic level typically receives 10% of the energy from the level below it. Therefore, at the highest trophic level, only 0.1% (10% of 10% of 10% of 10% of 100%) of the total energy is available.

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Answer from HIX Tutor

When evaluating a one-sided limit, you need to be careful when a quantity is approaching zero since its sign is different depending on which way it is approaching zero from. Let us look at some examples.