Calculating the Efficiency of Biomass Transfer

The efficiency of biomass transfer measures the proportion of biomass transferred from a lower trophic level to a higher one. To calculate the efficiency of biomass transfer between trophic levels, we use the equation

Considering the food chain Clover → Grasshopper → Snake → Fox as our previous example:

We divide the total biomass of the higher trophic level (transferred biomass) by the total biomass of the lower trophic level (available biomass). After this, we multiply the result by 100 to get the percentage of efficiency.