ABSTRACT
The systems of Florida's environment and economy are a network of energy transformations. This chapter shows the forest model to a straight chain of energy transformations without branches. At each succeeding level of the forest food chain, about 10% of the energy available to that level is converted to new biomass. The carrying capacity of an area for certain organisms depends on where they are on the food chain. An area can support more producers and fewer high-quality consumers. Energy transformations in the environment generate products used in the human economy, where they are transformed further in support of human consumers. Since many joules of energy at one level are required through energy transformations to make fewer joules of energy at the next level, the energy webs and chains are energy hierarchies. Because the solar transformity of a product measures the solar energy that has been used to make that product, solar transformity indicates the level in the energy hierarchy.
