Energy Pyramid

Real World Example

Imagine trying to pass a message through a long line of people, where each person whispers it to the next. Just as the message tends to get distorted or lost as it moves from person to person, energy diminishes as it moves up each level of a food chain. In this analogy, each person represents a trophic level in the energy pyramid, and the message represents energy; just as the message gets weaker as it travels through more people, energy decreases with each transfer from one trophic level to the next.