Flexi Says: Since only about 10 percent of energy available at one trophic level transfers to the next, an ecosystem cannot sustain a greater biomass of carnivores than herbivores. However, if the average size of individual carnivores is much smaller than the average size of individual herbivores in an ecosystem, the numbers pyramid may be inverted. For example, this can occur in an ecosystem where most of the carnivores are small parasites.
