ENVIRONMENT & GREEN LIVING
How Does Being a Vegetarian Conserve Overall Energy in
Trophic Levels?
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by Contributing Writer
One of the benefits of a vegetarian diet is a
reduction in your impact on the environment.
Animals store only a small fraction of the
energy they extract from the food they eat, and
the rest is wasted as heat. If you eat animal
foods, most of the energy in the plants those
animals ate has been lost as heat and only a
fraction of it reaches you. Eating plants is more Eating meat places you higher up the food chain.
efficient, meaning that less of the energy the
plants contain is wasted. Ultimately, this means that less land is required to support a
population of vegetarians.
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Trophic Levels
A food chain is the sequence of who eats whom in a given environment. Sheep, for example,
eat grass and are eaten by wolves in turn. Your trophic level is your position on the food
chain, which determines how much energy you require. Producers -- organisms that harvest
energy from sunlight -- occupy the first trophic level, the lowest position on a chain.
Herbivores that eat the producers are considered the second trophic level, while carnivores
that eat herbivores are the third level. Carnivores that eat other carnivores -- like sharks
that eat seals -- are the fourth trophic level. Food chains in nature are more complicated than
this model suggests, of course; most more closely resemble a web than a chain, because each
organism may have many different kinds of organisms it can eat. Grizzly bears, for example,
eat both plant matter like berries and roots and animals like fish and insects.
Energy Conversion
All of the energy in most food webs on Earth originates as sunlight. Producers like plants on
the first trophic level convert the sunlight they capture into chemical energy. This stored
energy is extracted by herbivores on the second trophic level, who use it to sustain their own
growth. Carnivores on the third and fourth trophic levels in turn extract stored chemical
energy from the herbivores and carnivores they eat. In other words, energy travels upward
through the food chain. Any time an organism eats another organism, it is extracting and
converting stored chemical energy into a form it can use.
Efficiency
The Second Law of Thermodynamics is an important law of physics, dictating that no energy
conversion can be 100-percent efficient. In other words, every time you transform or
convert energy from one form to another, some of that energy is lost in the form of waste
heat. In general, roughly 90 percent of stored energy is lost as waste heat each time you go
up the food chain by one trophic level. In other words, animals, on average, convert just 10
percent of the energy available from the organisms they eat into stored chemical energy.
Significance
Eating lower down on the food chain provides a massive savings in terms of how much
energy and resources you need. If you're on the third trophic level and you eat herbivores,
the animals you eat contain only 10 percent of the energy originally stored by the plants
they consumed. This means you require somewhere close to 10 times more plant mass to
support you than someone who just eats plants. Conversion efficiencies in food webs vary, so
this is a rough estimate. However, in general, eating lower on the food chain is always a more
efficient practice.
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References
State University of New York Oswego, Department of Chemistry: Environmental
Investigations, Ecology and Energy
(http://www.oswego.edu/~schneidr/CHE300/envinv/EnvInv03.html)
University of Wisconsin Stevens Point: The Physical Environment, Trophic Levels and
Food Chains
(http://www4.uwsp.edu/geo/faculty/ritter/geog101/textbook/biogeography/trophic_level
s_and_food_chains.html)
Oregon State University: Trophic Issues
(http://people.oregonstate.edu/~muirp/trophic.htm)
ScienceDaily: Trophic Level (http://www.sciencedaily.com/articles/t/trophic_level.htm)
US Fish and WIldlife Service: What Do Grizzly Bears Eat? (http://www.fws.gov/mountainprairie/species/mammals/grizzly/grizz_foods.pdf)
Resources
The Guardian: 10 Ways Vegetarianism Can Help Save the Planet
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/jul/18/vegetarianism-save-planetenvironment)
About the Author
Based in San Diego, John Brennan has been writing about science and the environment since
2006. His articles have appeared in "Plenty," "San Diego Reader," "Santa Barbara
Independent" and "East Bay Monthly." Brennan holds a Bachelor of Science in biology from
the University of California, San Diego.
Photo Credits
Hemera Technologies/AbleStock.com/Getty Images
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