Answer:
b. at each step, energy is lost from the system as a result of keeping the organisms alive
Explanation:
Generally Ecological pyramids helps to visualise the structure of Ecosystem.Its diagrammatically showed the relative amounts of numbers of organisms ,their energy, and the amount of energy that is converted in living tissue as usable mass (biomass) at different tropic levels.
Basically, large amount of energy is lost as energy flow from one tropic level to another in an ecosystem. This can be explained with the second law of thermodynamics;<u> </u><u>which states that in the conversion of energy from one form to another in a system, there is always a tendency towards disorderliness</u><u>.</u>That is the entropy changes of the universe can never be negative.Relatively in a biological system, this means that energy is lost in metabolic process( glycolysis, chemeosmosis, assimilation, growth .......) as heat, as organisms at one tropic level is consumed by another at the next level, from the base to the peak of these pyramids.
The amount of energy transfer efficiency among the two successive tropic levels is obtained by <u>dividing the energy transfer at present tropic level</u> with<u> the energy transfer at previous tropic levels</u> and<u> mutiply the results by 100%</u> . This known as Tropic level transfer efficiency(TLTE) .
The lower energy efficiency between successful present and previous tropic levels in these pyramids accounts for the similarities.
