Which ecological pyramid is always upright?
A pyramid of energy is always upright when it expresses production or energy flux per unit area per unit time. Each trophic level receives only part of the energy processed by the level below, while respiration irreversibly disperses usable energy as heat. Biomass pyramids can invert because standing stock combines production and turnover: rapidly renewed phytoplankton may support a larger instantaneous consumer biomass. Energy flux incorporates time, so fast producer turnover cannot produce an inverted energy pyramid under consistent accounting. Pyramid shape is an accounting result with biol
Ref: Fundamentals of Ecology, Odum & Barrett, 5th Ed., Ch. 3
