Question

The energy flow in the ecosystem follows the second law of thermodynamics.” Explain.

Answer 1

Second law of thermodynamics:

The second law of thermodynamics states that there is a natural tendency of any isolated system to move towards a disorderly state, that is the entropy increases.

This law is concerned not with the quantity but with the quality of energy.

Energy flow in an ecosystem:

● In the ecosystem the producers obtain the energy from the sun and convert it into organic matter, this increases the entropy.

● This energy is transferred to the primary consumers, secondary consumers and finally to tertiary consumers. Each trophic level receives $10\%$ of energy from the previous trophic level. The rest of the energy is lost as heat, due to respiration of the organisms, into the environment resulting in the overall increase in entropy of the system.

● Therefore at each trophic level the entropy increases following the second law of thermodynamics.