Name: Secondary Productivity
Uploaded: 2019-07-19
Duration: 4 min 18 s
Description: The pace at which consumers turn the chemical energy in their food into their own biomass is referred to as secondary productivity. Let's learn in detail!

Question

Define ecological pyramids and describe with examples pyramids of number and biomass.

Accepted Answer

A diagrammatic representation which shows the biomass or productivity at each trophic level in a given ecosystem is called an ecological pyramid (trophic pyramid).
Ecological pyramids are of three types:

Pyramid of number

Pyramid of biomass and

Pyramid of energy.

1) A diagrammatic representation depicting the arrangement of the number of individuals of different trophic levels in a food chain in an ecosystem is called a pyramid of numbers.

Example: A pyramid of numbers in a grassland ecosystem.
The size of an organism is found to increase with each trophic level, i.e., from the level of the producer to top carnivores., while their count decrease in the food chain. Therefore, here, the pyramid is an upright pyramid.

On the other hand, when consider a big tree, the number of insects or birds feeding on the tree is more. So, in this case the pyramid of number is inverted.

2) The pyramid of biomass is an ecological pyramid that represents the relationship between biomass and the trophic level by quantification of the amount of biomass present at every trophic level. The pyramid of biomass can either be upright or inverted.

Example for pyramid of biomass: In grassland or forest ecosystems, it can be seen that there is a gradual decrease in the biomass of organisms at successive trophic levels from producers to top carnivores resulting in the upright pyramid.

On the other hand, in a pond ecosystem, the carnivores are larger while producers are the smallest organisms. Subsequently, there is a gradual increase in the biomass of organisms from producers to top carnivores at successive levels, resulting in an inverted pyramid.

Define ecological pyramids and describe with examples pyramids of number and biomass.

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