Question

If the primary consumer has 400 J of energy. What was the energy trapped by the producer and also write the energy present at the quaternary consumer level?

Answer 1

According to the 10% law, at each trophic level about 10% of the energy of previous trophic level is passed to the next trophic level of the food chain. 

So, if the primary consumers have 400J of energy then producers (first trophic level) will have 10% more of 400J 

⇒ 400 + 400 x \(\frac{10}{100}\)

= 400 + 40 

= 440J 

So, 440J will be available for the producer. 

Now, the energy transferred to the secondary consumer will be= 400 × 10%=40J 

Similarly only 10% of the energy entering the secondary consumers is available for the tertiary consumers. So tertiary consumers will have 4J of energy (40× 10%). 

Hence the energy available for quaternary consumers= 4 × 10%= 0.4J

Comments

The correct answer is 4000J
As 10%of producer energy=Primary consumer take
10% of x=400J (given)
X = 4000J