What happens when food energy passes from herbivores to carnivores and how does energy enter an herbivore and travels through an omnivore to reach a carnivore?
10% Law will be applied irrespective of going from herbivore to carnivore or herbivore to carnivore via omnivore, only 10% energy will be trasferred to higher tropic level from autotrops.
There are different energy flow models as the efficiency of organisms in exploiting their food resources and converting them into biomass for next higher trophic level varies from one level to another. In most cases, the ones proposed by Raymond Lindeman (1942) and somehow supported by numerous ecologists (e.g. Eugene P. Odum, 1950s-1990s; Smith, 1974 & 1996; Whittaker, 1975; Dasmann, 1981), the following approaches are applied: (i) The gross primary productivity (GPP) vs the net primary productivity (NPP), where, NPP = GPP – respiration; and (ii) The 10% energy law.