Question

When a consumer eats a producer, 10 percent of the producer's energy is passed on to the consumer trophic level. What happens to the other 90 percent?
• It is consumed and used by the consumer.
Q It is used for cell processes or released as heat.
• It is used by the producer to pass on to the next trophic level.
• It is added back to the soil by decomposers.

Answer 1

Answer: It is used for cell processes or released as heat.

Explanation: Only about 10% of the producer's energy becomes biomass that the consumer can use; most (≈90%) is expended by the producer for respiration and metabolism or lost as heat (and some is in indigestible material that later goes to decomposers).