Energy transformation
Energy transformation is also known as energy conversion, where energy changes from one form to the other. The power in its various types is used up in the natural processes where it will provide some utility or services to other beings in the society such as heating, lighting, or aid in the performance of mechanical work. Energy transformation can be exhibited in the food chains and food webs of animals. Most of the natural transformations of energy in the ecosystems begin with the photosynthesis process.
At the base of the food chain, there are usually the primary producers. In a typical food chain, the primary producers are the green plants and a particular group of bacteria. For this case, the green plant is the grass which produces energy with the help of the sun and rain and the photosynthesis process. Above the primary producers are the consumers. Consumers take in live plants or prey on others for energy. For our food chain, there are various consumers of different levels, most of which are carnivores, but the immediate consumers of the producers are usually herbivores in the ecosystem (Shoo, 2019).
The immediate consumers of the producers are called the primary consumers and in this case, is the grasshopper. It can be any other insect that feeds on grass. Primary consumers are then consumed by the secondary consumers who are the frogs. There is also a tertiary consumer in my food chain, which is the snake. Finally, there is also a final consumer which is the hawk that derives energy from eating the snake. In a complete food chain, there is always the decomposers. Decomposers include the bacteria, moulds, and fungi, which make use of energy that is stored in dead plants and animals.
Fungi like mushrooms make up nutrients from the dead organisms through secretion of enzymes that break up the chemical compounds which make up the dead plants. For our food chain, the decomposers are fungi which is the mushroom. The bacteria or fungi, in this case, are used by the plants again to maintain the transformation cycle of energy flow in the ecosystem. From the food chain, it is the producers that are many in volume as compared to any other level (Nissenbaum, 2019). It is to take care of the primary consumers that are also many. However, the tertiary and final consumers are usually less in number in the food chain.
In the above observations, there are the applications of the first and second law of thermodynamics. The flow of the food chain suggests that energy can neither be created nor destroyed. It only changes from one form to the other with the primary source of the same being the sun. Solar is absorbed and transformed into chemical energy. Secondly, when power is transformed, it is lost in small quantities of heat between the trophic levels, especially among the consumers when one animal feeds on the other.