QQuestionBiology
QuestionBiology
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What is the 10 percent rule?
The 10 percent rule states that when an organism/species is consumed by another organism/species of a higher trophic level, the latter only retains 10% of the energy. The rest of the energy is lost during energy transfer, or transformed as heat, or lost to incomplete digestion by species of a higher trophic level.
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Step 1: Understand the concept of the 10 percent rule
The 10 percent rule is a principle in ecology that describes the inefficiency of energy transfer between trophic levels in a food chain or food web. When one organism consumes another, only a small fraction of the consumed organism's energy is actually transferred to the consumer.
Step 2: Examine the energy transfer process
When energy is transferred from one trophic level to another, several factors contribute to the loss of energy: - Energy used for growth, reproduction, and maintenance of the consumer - Energy lost as heat during metabolic processes - Energy lost due to incomplete digestion of the consumed organism
Final Answer
The 10 percent rule is a principle in ecology that states only about 10% of the energy is retained by the consumer at each trophic level during energy transfer. This inefficiency is due to energy used for growth, reproduction, and maintenance, energy lost as heat, and energy lost due to incomplete digestion.
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