Help with bio!!!!?

Im not sure about these question.....





1. Why must primary consumers eat large numbers of plants?





2. What would happen ot the food chains in an area if all the plants were to die?





3. What happens to most of the energy at each level of a food chain?





4. Explain how the relationship between orchid platns and a tree might chage from commenaslisms and parasitism?

Help with bio!!!!?
1. primary consumers need plants because its their main source of energy...plants have the most direct energy from the sun


2. the food chains would all die off. the primary consumers would be first, and everything that ate them would die off soon after.


3. it decreases as it gets further away from plants


4. i dont really know what this questions asking
Reply:1. Most of the primary consumers you%26#039;re thinking of have only a limited ability to use the energy stored in plants. Cattle and other herbivores are very inefficient at extracting energy from cellulose, the major component of plants on land, for example. Also, plants contain calcium, iron, and other things animals need, but not greatly concentrated; hence, there%26#039;s a need to eat lots of plant matter.





2. The consumers would either die, or move to another area.





3. The energy is lost as heat by the consumers, as they move and use the energy they gained from the previous level(s).





4. In the commensal relationship, an orchid would simply use the tree as a place to be; its modified roots would act as a holdfast and keep the orchid in place. In a parasitic relationship, the orchid%26#039;s roots would go into the limb of the tree, and use the tree as a source of nutrients (phloem) and maybe even a source of minerals (xylem) depending on how far its roots drilled into the tree.