Grassland Biomass Trophic Pyramids

A trophic pyramid is essentially a static view of the distribution of biomass in a community among producers, consumers, and, at times, decomposers. This chapter focuses on the distribution of biomass at one point in time, unlike the other chapters which primarily consider average values or dynamics of the ecosystem. The existence of a pyramidal trophic structure in ecosystems has become one of the first principles of ecology. Evidence for this may be found in most general textbooks of ecology, which present trophic pyramids in terms of numbers, biomass, or energy content of organisms (e.g., Odum 1973).