How Does Energy Flow Through An Ecosystem

But in a few rare cases such as ecosystems found in rocks deep beneath the ground bacterial producers can use the energy found in a gas called hydrogen sulfide that is found within the environment to create food even in the absence of sunlight.

At the first trophic level primary producers use solar energy to produce organic material through photosynthesis. The process ends when the carnivores die and get decomposed thereby becoming food for plants and starting the cycle again. Our ecosystem is maintained by the cycling energy and nutrients obtained from different external sources. Energy enters ecosystems as sunlight and is transformed into usable chemical energy by producers such as land plants algae and photosynthetic bacteria.

Since the energy gets used up throughout the entire cycle of flowing through the ecosystem it cannot be recycled. Energy flows through the ecosystem through different levels starting with the process of photosynthesis.