sume about 10 percent of the energy stored by the secondary consumers (1 unit of energy). As the individuals increase in size, the amount of energy required for body maintenance, growth, reproduction, and locomotion also increases.
Food Web
In any ecosystem, most organisms have more than one source of food. For example, a large fish may feed on smaller fish, crayfish, and insects. This process results in an organism being part of more than one food chain. The complex overlapping of food chains is known as a food web (see Figure 4-13).
Keep in mind that food chains, food webs, and food pyramids are ways to generalize and simplify what are, in reality, very complex systems