Is the energy conversion efficiency of herbivores better than carnivores and why birds and small mammals have low net production efficiency?
The energy conversion efficiency of herbivores is generally not better than carnivores due to the inefficiencies in energy transfer between trophic levels.
Birds and small mammals have low net production efficiency because of their high metabolic rates, which consume a substantial portion of the energy they acquire from their diets.
When food energy is moved from farmers to herbivores to carnivores, only 10 percentages of the energy is transferred from one trophic stage to another trophic level. The right answer, therefore, is 'Herbivores have higher energy transfer performance than carnivores. The average efficiency of energy transfer from herbivores to carnivores is 10%. Carnivores have higher consumption efficiency than herbivores, since more of their food source is consumed than enters into the detrital food chain. Assimilation efficiency varies with prey type, with AE for herbivorous species generally ranging from 60 to 95%, and carnivorous species higher, at more than 90%. We compare digestive physiology of mammal herbivores and carnivores. Carnivores have lower intake, higher digestibility, shorter digesta retention. The scaling of these measures with body mass is nevertheless similar between the groups. As a consequence, carnivores have less gut fill than herbivores. The total bioavailability of plants vastly exceeds that of animals, so an average ecosystem can support many more herbivores than it can carnivores. This means, by random chance alone, it is more likely for the strongest species or individual to be an herbivore. The small intestine is longer in herbivores than in carnivores because herbivores consume plant and grass-based food which is high in cellulose and the digestion of cellulose takes a long time. The length of the small intestine differs in various animals depending on the food that they eat. Higher reproduction and longevity was apparent in omnivores compared to herbivores. However, there was no significant difference in reproduction or longevity between herbivores and carnivores. Birds and small mammals have low net production efficiency because of their high metabolic rates, which consume a substantial portion of the energy they acquire from their diets. Endotherms like birds and mammals typically have low production efficiencies due to the larger quantities of energy spent maintaining constant high body temperatures, and high metabolic rates. The production efficiency of herbivores tends to be higher than that of carnivores. Generally, an individual's production efficiency will decline as the C: N ratio of its food increases All else being equal, small animals have lower production efficiencies than large ones.