CAIE IGCSE Biology 19.2.12 Pyramids of biomass
Practise explaining why biomass can represent feeding relationships more usefully than organism counts in food chains.
- Syllabus
- 2026–2028
- Course
- Biology 0610
Exam points
- explain why one large organism and one tiny organism distort a pyramid of numbers
- link biomass to the amount of food or energy available at each trophic level
19.2.12—Pyramids of biomass question 1
A scientist studied communities in different parts of a desert and estimated the biomass of the organisms in each area.
He divided the organisms into four groups according to their roles in the food web as shown in Table 2.1.
Detritivores are animals that eat dead organisms or parts of organisms.
Table 2.1
Some of these results are shown as a pyramid of biomass in Fig. 2.2.
Fig. 2.2
Explain the advantages of presenting information about food webs as a pyramid of biomass and not as a pyramid of numbers.
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