In a typical food web, where is the most energy stored?

• A. Hawk
• B. Grass
• C. Mouse
• D. Grasshopper

Answer: (B)

Energy flow in ecosystems shows that energy is stored most in the base of the food web, where producers capture sunlight and make chemical energy that becomes biomass. Grass, as a producer, uses photosynthesis to store a lot of this energy in its tissues. When other organisms eat plants, only a portion of that energy moves up to each higher level, because much of it is used for life processes or lost as heat. This means higher-level consumers—like a hawk, or a mouse and its predator—end up with far less stored energy in their bodies than the plants do. The energy transfer between levels is inefficient, so the energy available at the next level gets smaller and smaller.