Question

If a rabbit receives 150 calories of energy from eating carrots, how much of

that energy would be passed on to a snake in the following food chain?
Carrot - Rabbit - Snake - Hawk

Answer 1

carrot- 1500
rabbit- 150
snake- 15
hawk- 1.5

Answer 2

According to the 10% law of energy transfer, only about 10% of energy will be transferred to the successive level from the previous trophic level. Therefore according to this law carrot will have the highest energy level as it is present at the lowest trophic level.

Then it will transfer 10% of its consumed energy to the rabbit and then snakes will get 10% energy of rabbit after consuming it. Therefore if the energy amount is given it can be calculated by dividing it by 10 for upper trophic level.

So if a rabbit receives 150 calories of energy from eating carrots it will pass only 15(150/10=15) calory of energy on to a snake. Therefore the correct answer is 15 calories of energy would be passed on to a snake in the following food chain.