10% rule: The law was given by Lindeman. An average of only 10% of the energy in one trophic level is passed to the next trophic level.

As energy flows in an ecosystem from producers to consumers to decomposers, about 90%of the total energy is lost at each feeding level in the chain because most of the energy is either used by the organism or is given off as heat. The loss of energy at each level can be represented by an energy pyramid. Because of the energy loss, the amount of energy levels in an ecosystem is limited to about 3-5. The transfer of energy is never 100%.