Terms : Hide Images
| 121123772 | ecosystem | all the organisms in a given area as well as the abiotic factors with which they interact | |
| 121123773 | law of conservation of mass | a physical law stating that matter can change form but cannot be created or destroyed | |
| 121123774 | primary producers | autotrophs, usually a photosynthetic organism; make up the trophic level of an ecosystem that ultimately supports all other levels | |
| 121123775 | secondary consumers | carnivores that eat herbivores | |
| 121123776 | tertiary consumers | carnivores that eat other carnivores | |
| 121123777 | detrivores | decomposers; consumers that derive their energy and nutrients from nonliving organic material such as corpses, fallen plant material, and the wastes of living organisms | |
| 121123778 | detritus | dead organic matter | |
| 121123779 | primary production | the amount of light every converted to chemical energy (organic compounds) by autotrophs in an ecosystem during a given time period | |
| 121123780 | gross primary production | the total primary production of an ecosystem | |
| 121123781 | net primary production | the gross primary production of an ecosystem minus the energy used by the producers for respiration | |
| 121123782 | limiting nutrient | an element that must be added for production to increase in a particular area | |
| 121123783 | eutrophication | a process by which nutrients, particularly phosphorus and nitrogen, become highly concentrated in a body of water, leading to increased growth of organisms such as algae or cyanobacteria | |
| 121123784 | actual evapotranspiration | the amount of water transpired by plants evaporated from a landscape over a given period of time (usually for a year) | |
| 121123785 | secondary production | the amount of chemical energy in consumer's food that is converted to their own biomass during a given time period | |
| 121123786 | production efficiency | the percentage of energy stored in food that is not used for respiration or eliminated as waste | |
| 121123787 | trophic efficiency | the percentage of production transferred from one trophic level to the next | |
| 121123788 | turnover time | the time required to replace the standing crop of a population or group of populations; calculated as the ratio of standing crop to production | |
| 121123789 | green world hypothesis | the conjecture that terrestrial herbivores consume relatively little plant biomass because they are held in check by a variety of factors, including predators, parasites, and diseases | |
| 121123790 | biogeochemical cycles | any of the various chemical cycles, which involves both biotic and abiotic components of ecosystems | |
| 121123791 | biological magnification | a process in which retained substances become more concentrated at each higher trophic level in a food chain (problem with toxins in environment; ex. DDT) | |
| 121123792 | greenhouse effect | the warming of Earth due to the atmosphere accumulation of carbon dioxide and certain other gasses which absorb reflected infrared radiation and reflect some of it back toward Earth | |
| 121123793 | trophic level efficiency | 10% efficient between trophic levels (10% of energy is used in the next level) | |
| 121123794 | water cycle | type of nutrient cycle that is essential to all organisms, its availability influences the rates of ecosystem processes (particularly primary production and decomposition in terrestrial ecosystems) | |
| 121123795 | carbon cycle | type of nutrient cycle whose component forms the framework of the organic molecules essential to all organisms; photosynthetic organisms utilize this during photosynthesis; major reservoirs are fossil fuels, sediments, oceans, and plant and animal biomass (largest reservoir is sedimentary rock like limestone) | |
| 121123796 | terrestrial nitrogen cycle | type of nutrient cycle whose component is part of amino acids, proteins and nucleic acids, and is also a limiting plant nutrient; makes up 80% of atmosphere | |
| 121123797 | phosphorus cycle | type of nutrient cycle whose component is part of nucleic acids, phospholipids, and ATP; largest accumulation is in sedimentary rocks of marine origin | |
| 121123798 | decomposition rate | controlled by temperature, moisture, and nutrient availability; much faster in tropical rain forests than in temperate climates | |
| 121123799 | acid precipitation | caused by burning of wood and fossil fuels, which releases oxides of sulfur and nitrogen into the air, which consequently react with water in the atmosphere; when precipitation has a pH equal to or less than 5.2; causes calcium and other nutrients to be released from the soil and limits plant growth | |
| 121123800 | ozone layer depletion | caused by accumulation of chlorofluorocarbons (CFC's); causes increased intensity of UV rays reaching Earth's surface |
