Photosynthesis makes the glucose that is used in cellular respiration to make ATP. The glucose is then turned back into carbon dioxide, which is used in photosynthesis. While water is broken down to form oxygen during photosynthesis, in cellular respiration oxygen is combined with hydrogen to form water.
When energy passes from one trophic level to the next, I would guess that the two factors which decrease the total amount of energy from being passed up are:
1. An organism does not assimilate all the energy of food consumed. Within a consumer, digestion and assimilation of energy is not 100% efficient: some of the energy is lost.
2. A large proportion of energy assimilated by a producer and consumer is lost through respiration, i.e., day-to-day maintenance of metabolic processes.
(A)Until the onset of PUBERTY,
Mice that are injected with the living R strain survive.
