Farming practices designed to increase efficiency of energy transfer by: simplifying food webs to reduce energy losses to non-human food chains; reducing respiratory losses within a human food chain
Farmers use specific techniques to keep more energy flowing toward humans. They remove competing organisms and reduce the energy animals burn through respiration.
Real World
Bernard Matthews turkey farms kept birds in heated indoor sheds with restricted movement, reducing the birds' respiratory heat losses so that more ingested energy was converted into meat — increasing energy transfer efficiency from about 4% to over 10%.
Exam Focus
Link each farming practice to its specific energy-saving mechanism — examiners want the biological explanation, not just the practice.
Evaluation Scaffold
A four-step framework for high-quality evaluation. Use this for 'assess', 'evaluate', and 'to what extent' questions.
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