Animals that eat plants get the energy stored in the plants and use it for things such as moving around. However, only a small fraction of the energy in the plants gets converted to useful energy for the animal. Most of the energy is lost to heat. How can this situation be used to support the idea of the law of conservation of energy

This question lacks options, the options are:

A. A The amount of energy used by the animals, added to the amount of energy lost to heat, equals the amount of energy from the plants eaten by the animal.

B. B While some animals get their energy from plants, there are also many animals that get energy by eating other animals, and still other animals that eat both.

C. C All the energy lost to heat by animals provides the heat energy that plants need to live and grow, allowing them to make their own food.

D. D When plants and animals die, their energy goes into the soil, where growing plants can absorb it, turn it into food, then transfer this energy to animals.

The answer is A

Explanation:

Firstly, the law of conservation of energy states that energy can neither be created nor destroyed but can only be changed from one form to another. Based on this, energy cannot be made or destroyed by any process, it can be transformed.

In an ecosystem, organisms derive energy by feeding on one another in a feeding chain. However, this feeding pattern starts with a PRODUCER, which are usually plants that get their energy from sunlight. When plants are eaten by consumers (animals), the stored energy in them is transferred. However, only a little fraction of this energy is transferred because most of the energy has been lost as heat when the plant undergoes metabolic activities.

This supports the law of conservation of energy in the sense that, the energy that gets transferred to the animal when it feeds on the plant and the energy that gets transformed into heat via metabolism of plant must equal the total energy stored up in the plant initially. This shows that no energy is destroyed in the process.