concept

Trophic efficiency

The share of the energy at one trophic level that actually reaches the next — by Lindeman's observation roughly a tenth, the rest lost to respiration, waste and whatever goes uneaten. Because levels compound, the consequence turns brutal fast: a four-step chain retains about a thousandth of the carbon originally fixed. That is why apex predators are rare by arithmetic rather than by accident, and why a hydrothermal field of a few thousand square metres — however rainforest-grade its productivity per square metre — supports top predators measured in kilograms.