Post #2
Question to answer:What do you predict about the quantity of energy the producers take in compared to the quantity of energy that goes out?
- I predict that the quantity of energy that the producers take in will be greater than the quantity of energy that goes out because of the second law of thermodynamics, which states that when energy is converted from one form to another, heat (energy) will be lost. The plant will perform photosynthesis and cellular respiration
- I predict that the quantity of energy that the consumers take in will be greater than the quantity of energy that goes out because of the second law of thermodynamics, which states that when energy is converted from one form to another, heat (energy) will be lost. The consumers will perform cellular respiration, which converts glucose to ATP, a chemical energy that can be used by the tilapia.
- Some ways that producers and consumers could lose energy includes energy conversion (ex: oxygen and glucose are converted to chemical energy during cellular respiration), or in the waste products (ex: faeces) pf the animals. During respiration, energy is produced by the mitochondria, so the the sells of the spinach can performs its daily functions. Subsequently, glucose is converted to ATP in different pathways, such as glycolysis, citric cycle electron transport chain, etc. As a result, heat, energy, is lost as an effect. Energy is lost by faeces because food must be digest, which is a body function that requires energy to be converted to ATP.
- One could estimate the amount of energy lost through the various various pathways by subtracting the initial amount of oxygen in the fish tank by the amount of oxygen in the fish tank after photosynthesis or you could measure the amount of energy lost by subtracting the net primary production by the gross primary production.