Biology / Unit 3 Bio 0613 short lesson, about 20 seconds
"Energy Is Recycled in an Ecosystem"
Captions available
The idea
Treating an ecosystem's energy like its matter ignores the second law: each transfer between organisms permanently loses usable energy as heat, per Bio 0506.
In practice
A wolf eating a deer that ate grass recovers only a fraction of the sunlight energy the grass captured.
Where people slip
An ecosystem needs constant new solar energy, while its matter can cycle indefinitely with no outside input.
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