Energy Across Levels

Every biological process requires energy, and it’s easy to lose track of where that energy originally came from. The animation shows the flow of energy starting at the level of a tertiary consumer and traveling back to the energy released from the Sun.

Animation showing how energy flows from the Sun to organisms. The animation starts at the level of tertiary consumers and goes backward to show where each level’s energy came from. The size of each cube represents, to scale, the relative amounts of energy at each level.

Question 6

Complete the table by calculating the amount of energy at each level in the animation. Select levels in the “Energy Level” column for calculation information.

Table showing the total amount of energy (represented in terms of flux) at each level, averaged across the five locations in Question 2.
Energy level	Amount of energy $(W / m^{2})$
Energy to tertiary consumer	.002
Energy to secondary consumer About 10 times the energy available to tertiary consumers. Round to the nearest two decimal places.
Energy to primary consumer About 10 times the energy available to secondary consumers. Round to the nearest one decimal place.
Energy to producers About 10 times the energy available to primary consumers and about 1.25% of the energy at Earth’s surface. Round to the nearest whole number.
Photosynthetically active radiation About 37% of the energy at Earth’s surface. Round to the nearest whole number.
Solar energy at Earth’s surface In Question 3, you calculated the incoming energy at Earth’s surface for five locations. For this calculation, take the average of those five numbers: 156, 224, 125, 195, and 103 (all in W/m squared). Round to the nearest whole number.
Solar energy at top of Earth’s atmosphere In Question 1, you estimated how much of the Sun’s energy makes it to Earth. This is 0.00216% of the energy at the Sun’s surface. Round to the nearest whole number.
Solar energy at Sun’s surface	63,000,000