Question

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

short paragraph

Answer 1

Biomass generally declines with increasing trophic level because energy is lost at each transfer between levels—through incomplete consumption, digestion inefficiency, and respiration—so only a small fraction (often around 10%) of the energy captured by plants becomes available to herbivores, and an even smaller fraction reaches predators. Because less energy is available, fewer individuals or less total mass can be supported at higher trophic levels, producing the characteristic pyramid of biomass where primary producers have the most biomass and top predators the least.