secondary production

Secondary production refers to the process by which consumers such as animals and humans convert the energy and nutrients they obtain from their food into new biological tissue—growth, reproduction, and maintenance. Essentially, it measures how efficiently organisms turn the food they consume into their own body mass. This process is important for understanding how energy flows through ecosystems, as it accounts for the biomass added to populations over time. In ecological studies, secondary production helps assess the productivity of consumer populations and their role within food webs.