AP Biology Chapter 54: Ecosystems Vocabulary
Terms : Hide Images
| 94466679 | Ecosystem | a community and its physical environment, including biotic and abiotic components. All organisms in a given area as well as the abiotic factors with which they interact; a community and it's physical environment. P1198 | 0 | |
| 94466680 | Heterotrophs | an organism that obtains organic food molecules by eating other organisms or their byproduct. P 1199 | 1 | |
| 94466681 | Primary producers | an autotroph, which collectively make up the trophic level of an ecosystem that ultimately supports all other levels in the ecosystem; usually a photosynthetic organism which use light energy to make sugars and other organic compounds. P1199 | 2 | |
| 94466682 | Primary consumers | consumers that eat producers. Ex: herbavors. | 3 | |
| 94466683 | Secondary consumers | a member of the trophic level of an ecosystem consisting of carnivores that eat herbivores. p1199 | 4 | |
| 94466684 | Tertiary consumers | a member of the trophic level of an ecosystem consisting of carnivores that eat other carnivores. p1199 | 5 | |
| 94466685 | Detritivores / Decomposers | A consumer that derives it's energy from nonliving organic material. | 6 | |
| 94466686 | Detritus | dead organic material. p1199 | 7 | |
| 94466687 | Primary production | amount of light energy converted to chemical energy (organic compounds) during a given time period in an ecosystem; the photosynthetic output of an ecosystem's autotrophs. p1200 | 8 | |
| 94466688 | Gross primary production (GPP) | the total primary production of an ecosystem. The amount of light energy that is converted to chemical energy by photosynthesis per unit time. Not all is stored as organic material because plants use some to fuel their own chemical respiration. p1200 | 9 | |
| 94466689 | Net Primary Production (NPP) | it represents the storage of chemical energy that is available to consumers in the ecosystem. It is equal to the gross primary production (GPP) of an ecosystem minus the energy used by the producers for respiration (R); [NPP=GPP-R]. p1200 | 10 | |
| 94466690 | Biomass | dry weight of organic matter comprising a small group of organisms in a particular habitat. p1201 | 11 | |
| 94466691 | Standing crop | the total biomass of photosynthetic autotrophs present at a given time. p1201 | 12 | |
| 94466692 | Limiting nutrient | the nutrient that must be added for production to increase; often is nitrogen or phosphorus. p1203 | 13 | |
| 94466693 | Eutrophication | the shift in composition of phytoplankton communities in lakes from dominations by green algae and diatoms to blooms of cyanobacteria. p1204 | 14 | |
| 94466694 | Secondary production | amount of chemical energy in consumers' food that is converted to their own new biomass during a given time period. p1205 | 15 | |
| 94466695 | Production efficiency | fraction of food energy that is not used for respiration. p1206 | 16 | |
| 94466696 | Trophic efficiency | the percentage of production transferred from one trophic level to the next.p1206 | 17 | |
| 94466697 | Pyramid of production | is a pyramid in which the trophic levels are staked in blocks, with primary producers forming the foundation of the pyramid. It shows the multiplicative loss of energy caused by trophic efficiency. p1206 | 18 | |
| 94466698 | Biomass pyramid | Each tier represents the standing crop in a trophic level. p1206 | 19 | |
| 94466699 | Turnover time | standing crop biomass compared to production; thus turnover time equals the standing crop biomass (mg/m2) divided by production (mg/m2/day). P1207 | 20 | |
| 94466700 | Pyramid of numbers | the size of each block is proportional to the number of individual organisms present in each trophic level. p1207 | 21 | |
| 94466701 | Green world hypothesis | states that herbivores consume relatively little plant biomass because they are held in check by a variety of factors including predators, parasites and disease. p1208 | 22 | |
| 94466702 | Biogeochemical cycles | any of the various nutrient circuits, which involve both biotic and abiotic components of the ecosystem. Chemical elements are passed between abiotic and biotic components of the ecosystem through the biogeochemical cycle. p1209 | 23 | |
| 94466703 | Nitrogen fixation | the assimilation of atmospheric nitrogen by certain prokaryotes into nitrogenous compounds that can be directly used by plants. Nitrogen can enter the ecosystem when certain prokaryotes convert N2 to minerals that can be used to synthesize nitrogenous organic compounds like amino acids. p1210 | 24 | |
| 94466704 | Nitrification | An activity that oxidizes ammonium to nitrite and then to nitrate by soil bacteria (making nitrogen available to plants). p1211 | 25 | |
| 94466705 | Denitrification | The conversion of nitrates back into nitrogen . p1211 | 26 | |
| 94466706 | Ammonification | the process in which the decomposition of organic nitrogen back to ammonium; carried out by bacterial and fungal decomposers. p1211 | 27 | |
| 94466707 | Long-term ecological research (LTER) | research conducted to follow dynamics of natural ecosystems over relatively long time periods. p1213 | 28 | |
| 94466708 | Critical load | the amount of added nitrogen that can be absorbed by plants without damaging ecosystem integrity. p1216 | 29 | |
| 94466709 | Cultural eutrophication | human intrusion that has disrupted freshwater ecosystems. Eutrophication that occurs as a result of sewage, factory wastes, and runoff of animal wastes and fertilizers from agricultural lands. p1216 | 30 | |
| 94466710 | Acid precipitation | rain, snow, or fog that has a pH less than 5.6. p1216 | 31 | |
| 94466711 | Biological magnification | a trophic process in which retained substances (poisons) become more concentrated with each level in the food chain. p1217 | 32 | |
| 94466712 | Greenhouse effect | the warming of planet Earth due to the atmospheric accumulation of carbon dioxide, water vapor, and other gases, which reflect infrared radiation back toward Earth. p1219 | 33 | |
| 94466713 | Actual Evapotranspiration | The amount of water annually transpired by plants and evaporated from a landscape, usually measured in millimeters. | 34 | |
| 94466714 | Law of Conservation of Mass | mass cannot be created/destroyed, although it may be rearranged in space, and be changed into different types of particles. | 35 |
