Question

Define food chain. Describe the flow of energy in an ecosystem with the help of a linear diagram.

Answer 1

The food chain is the sequence of population or organisms through which food and its contained energy pass in an ecosystem with members at one step becoming the food of later step of the sequence.

Energy flow is always unidirectional. Energy flows progressively from one trophic level to another and cannot revert back. In most of the natural ecosystems, energy comes from the sun, it is trapped by producers and then pass on to successive trophic levels in the form of food.

The available energy decreases at higher trophic level. Out of the total energy available at a particular trophic level, only 10% is passed on to the next trophic level, making it impossible for energy to flow in the reverse direction. The flow of energy in an ecosystem occurs in the following sequence:

Sun ------> Producer ------> Herbivore -------> Carnivore -------> Decomposer