Energy Transformation Answers

Lightning strikes are dangerous whether an individual is or is not in the path of the discharge. The current propagated by a lightning strike is actually what is harmful and the current can pass through the ground after striking. This means that even near-misses can be dangerous as the current travels through the ground.

Most of the energy in ecosystems enters as sunlight, so it is the principal source of energy for the biosphere. Autotrophs are organisms that can convert sunlight, solar radiation, into chemical energy that they and other organisms can use. Heterotrophs cannot utilize sunlight directly to make their food, so energy can only flow to them after passing through autotrophs.

Energy is neither created nor destroyed by chemical processes, merely transferred. Since energy is also lost every time energy is transferred between organisms, that lost heat must go somewhere. That lost energy becomes waste heat in the environment.

Secondary productivity is the rate at which consumers convert chemical energy into their own biomass. This rate is based on the organism’s metabolism, because organisms with higher metabolisms have to consume more energy to maintain their metabolic processes relative to how much energy is converted into their biomass. Reptiles have slower metabolisms than mammals and do not consume as much energy relative to their body mass as mammals, giving them a higher rate of secondary productivity.