Imagine you were going to model the flow of energy in an ecosystem and the flow of elements in the ecosystem using a diagram. Compare and contrast your diagrams for these two systems. (Site 1 )

Energy is catch by producers then given in a linear progression from one tropic level to the next. At each level, much of the energy escapes the ecosystem as heat. Unlike this one-way flow of energy, matter is recycled within and between ecosystems. Elements passage from one organism to another and among parts of the non-living environment through closed loops called biochemical cycles.