ENERGY TRANSFER

BY: MARISSA L. LABATOS

 Energy in an ecosystem
 Energy is transferred between organisms in food
webs from producers to consumers. The energy is
used by organisms to carry out complex tasks.
 The vast majority of energy that exists in food webs
originates from the sun and is converted
(transformed) into chemical energy by the process of
photosynthesis in plants. A small proportion of this
chemical energy is transformed directly into heat
when compounds are broken down during resp​iration
in plants. The majority of the chemical energy stored
in plants is transformed into other forms by an
assortment of consumers, such as cows, rabbits,
horses, sheep, caterpillars and other insects eating
plants.
 Some of the stored chemical energy in a producer
such as grass is stored as chemical energy in the fat or
protein in the first order consumers that eat the grass.
This energy is available for higher order consumers.
At each stage of a food chain, most of the chemical
energy is converted to other forms such as heat, and
does not remain within the ecosystem.