Why are long food chains less effective in transferring energy than short food chains?

Answer 1

Short food chains are more efficient than long food chains because you lose energy as you go up the chain. For example, if we say that plants take in 100% of the possible energy, when a rabbit eats that grass, the rabbit only gets 50% of the energy because the plants were using their stored energy to make food. It continues on like this for as long as the food chain lasts. (Note: the amount of energy isn't correct; I just used those percentages as examples.

Answer 2

Long food chains are less effective in transferring energy because with each step in the chain, some energy is lost as heat through respiration and metabolism. This means that less energy is available for each subsequent organism in the chain. In contrast, shorter food chains have fewer steps, leading to more efficient transfer of energy between trophic levels.

Answer 3

that is because more and more energy are lost on every level on the food chain. Remember that only 10% of energy gets transffered from ome animal to the other.

hope this helped!