Question

Put the following organisms in an aquatic food chain in the order in which energy flows through them, explaining the reason for their placement.

small fish, mammal, phytoplankton, zooplankton
short paragraph

Answer 1

Phytoplankton → zooplankton → small fish → mammal. Phytoplankton are photosynthetic primary producers that fix solar energy, zooplankton are primary consumers that graze on phytoplankton, small fish are secondary consumers that eat zooplankton, and the mammal is a higher-level (tertiary) consumer feeding on small fish; energy flows upward but is reduced at each step because much is lost as heat and used for metabolism.