Question

About 88% of the energy in the primary consumers does not become part of the
secondary consumers. Explain how this energy is lost from the food chain.

Answer 1

The energy captured by the producers is only 1% of the total solar energy. Now 10% of the energy captured by the producers is passed onto the primary consumers. Similarly, from each trophic level in a food chain, only 10% of the energy si transferred to the next. The remaining energy is lost in the environment in the form of metabolic processes like respiration.