Question

Explain how the biomass of a species is limited by their trophic level.

Answer 1

The word biomass has several meanings, and one of them is the amount of mass that a certain living creature has, or that of a species. It is used in biology often, and is usually related to the food chain and trophic levels. In order to understand biomass and trophic levels better, you should first understand the food chain. Trophic level is the level of a creature on the food chain. There are three levels, primary consumers, secondary consumers, and tertiary consumers. Primary consumers are those which eat plants. There are also some inverted biomass pyramids though, where there are very few primary consumers and many tertiary consumers. It is a very rare case, but it does happen in some ecosystems. For example, in the ocean, there are very little algae for the organisms to consume, but it is still a functioning ecosystem. This is because there are always new algae growing in the ocean, so although there is little it never runs out.

Answer 2

Answer: At each trophic level, some of the original energy derived from the sun is lost as heat energy. So, at each trophic level, the amount of available energy is less than the level below it. Animals at higher trophic levels have to consume more organisms to obtain the necessary energy. Organisms at higher trophic levels typically have a smaller biomass, because it takes more organisms to support their life than it does to support the organisms in trophic levels below them.