Energy pyramids show the relative amount of energy available at each trophic level of a food chain or food web.
At the beginning of the energy pyramid, 100% of the energy is available at the first trophic level. The total energy available at the highest trophic level is 0.1%. There is only a very small portion of energy that passes though any given trophic level that actually remains stored in that organism. Most of the energy that is received by eating is lost to cellular respiration. Cellular respiration produces a lot of heat. As a result, a lot of the energy taken in is lost as heat. Only 10% of energy taken in is actually passed on. The other 90% of energy is lost.