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Question
Explain why a progressive decline is seen in the population size from the first to the fourth trophic level in the above pyramid.
Solution
In the above example, the primary producers can support less number of primary consumers, which in turn support lesser number of secondary and tertiary consumers. In a food chain, as the size of an organism at any trophic level increases, its number decreases. This happens because according to the 10% law, only 10% of the energy is transferred from one trophic level to the next. So in order to sustain life, the number of organisms keeps decreasing at each trophic level. Thus, there is a progressive decline in the population size from the first to the fourth trophic level in the above pyramid.
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