Transfer of Biomass

• Producers are mostly plants and algae which transfer about 1% of the incident energy from light for photosynthesis
• Only approximately 10% of the biomass from each trophic level is transferred to the level above it
• Losses of biomass are due to:

  • not all the ingested material is absorbed, some is egested as faeces
  • some absorbed material is lost as waste, such as carbon dioxide in respiration and water and urea in urine
• large amounts of glucose are used in respiration