Answer: Matter and energy are conserved as they pass through a food web.
A food chain is the linear sequence of transfer of food and energy when one organism is fed or consumed by another organism in an ecosystem. A food web is an interconnection of food chains within an ecosystem. In food web, each food chain is dependent upon other food chain for it's food and energy requirements. A food chain comprises of trophic levels according to the type of consumers it exhibit like primary producers, primary consumers, secondary consumers , tertiary consumers and quaternary consumers. At each trophic level of the food chain matter and energy remain conserved in the form of biomass. This biomass is distributed as an outcome of the overall feeding process between the food chains. Therefore, matter and energy are conserved as they pass through a food web.
This ensures that the research is corroborated by other scientists and is peer-reviewed hence increasing the veracity of the findings. This also ensures that conflict of interest is addressed whereby the findings by the company may appear to be compromised or biased because such a finding would be in favour of their own needs (such as financial gain). Peer review in such case is even more important because it involves humans subjects and ethics are paramount in healthcare research.
