APES Flashcards

4791092385	Organic vs. inorganic compounds	The distinction between inorganic and organic compounds is not always clear. Organic chemists traditionally refer to any molecule containing carbon as an organic compound and by default this means that inorganic chemistry deals with molecules lacking carbon.	0
4791094155	Kinetic vs. potential energy	A simple cartoon film ,consisting simple explanation on the difference between Potential and Kinetic energy.Potential energy is the stored energy in an object due of its position or its configuration whereas Kinetic energy is the energy which a body possesses because of its motion.	1
4795666021	Radioactive decay and half life	the time required for one half the atoms of a given amount of a radioactive substance to disintegrate. 2. Also called biological half-life. Pharmacology. the time required for the activity of a substance taken into the body to lose one half its initial effectiveness.	2
4795667345	Law of conservation of matter	the principle that in any closed system subjected to no external forces, the mass is constant irrespective of its changes in form; the principle that matter cannot be created or destroyed. Expand. Also called law of conservation of mass, conservation of matter.	3
4795674142	1st law of thermodynamics	The first law of thermodynamics is a version of the law of conservation of energy, adapted for thermodynamic systems. The law of conservation of energy states that the total energy of an isolated system is constant; energy can be transformed from one form to another, but cannot be created or destroyed.	4
4795674143	2nd law of thermodynamics	The second law of thermodynamics states that the total entropy of an isolated system always increases over time, or remains constant in ideal cases where the system is in a steady state or undergoing a reversible process.	5
4804596008	Entropy	a thermodynamic quantity representing the unavailability of a system's thermal energy for conversion into mechanical work, often interpreted as the degree of disorder or randomness in the system.	6
4804596009	Species	a group of living organisms consisting of similar individuals capable of exchanging genes or interbreeding. The species is the principal natural taxonomic unit, ranking below a genus and denoted by a Latin binomial, e.g., Homo sapiens.	7
4804596010	Population	all the inhabitants of a particular town, area, or country.	8
4804597623	Community	a group of people living in the same place or having a particular characteristic in common.	9
4804597624	Ecosystem	a biological community of interacting organisms and their physical environment.	10
4804597638	Biosphere	the regions of the surface, atmosphere, and hydrosphere of the earth (or analogous parts of other planets) occupied by living organisms.	11
4804599734	Producers/autotrophs	An organism capable of synthesizing its own food from inorganic substances using light or chemical energy. Green plants, algae, and certain bacteria are autotrophs.	12
4804601597	Consumers/heterotrophs	A heterotroph is known as a consumer in the food chain. Consumers are organisms that cannot make their own food supply. They use the food that producers make, or they eat other organisms. Animals are consumers.	13
4804603343	Decomposers	an organism, especially a soil bacterium, fungus, or invertebrate, that decomposes organic material	14
4804603344	Photosynthesis	the process by which green plants and some other organisms use sunlight to synthesize foods from carbon dioxide and water. Photosynthesis in plants generally involves the green pigment chlorophyll and generates oxygen as a byproduct.	15
4804604452	Respiration	a process in living organisms involving the production of energy, typically with the intake of oxygen and the release of carbon dioxide from the oxidation of complex organic substances.	16
4804605351	Adaption	a change or the process of change by which an organism or species becomes better suited	17
4804605352	Gene pool	the stock of different genes in an interbreeding population.	18
4804606529	Natural selection	he process whereby organisms better adapted to their environment tend to survive and produce more offspring. The theory of its action was first fully expounded by Charles Darwin and is now believed to be the main process that brings about evolution.	19
4804608040	Biological diversity	the variability among living organisms from all sources including, inter alia, terrestrial, marine and other aquatic ecosystems and the ecological complexes of which they are part; this includes diversity within species, between species and of ecosystems.	20
4804610334	Genetic diversity	is the total number of genetic characteristics in the genetic makeup of a species. It is distinguished from genetic variability, which describes the tendency of genetic characteristics to vary. Genetic diversity serves as a way for populations to adapt to changing environments.	21
4804610335	Species diversity	Species diversity refers to the measure of diversity in an ecological community. Species diversity takes into consideration species richness, which is the total number of different species in a community. It also takes into account evenness, which is the variation of abundance in individuals per species in a community.	22
4804611337	Extinction	the state or process of a species, family, or larger group being or becoming extinct.	23
4804611338	Food chain	a hierarchical series of organisms each dependent on the next as a source of food.	24
4804614216	Food web	a system of interlocking and interdependent food chains.	25
4804614217	Tropic level	each of several hierarchical levels in an ecosystem, comprising organisms that share the same function in the food chain and the same nutritional relationship to the primary sources of energy.	26
4804614218	Biomass	the total mass of organisms in a given area or volume.	27
4804617566	Pyramid of energy flow	An energy pyramid is a graphical model of energy flow in a community. The different levels represent different groups of organisms that might compose a food chain. From the bottom-up, they are as follows: Producers — bring energy from nonliving sources into the community.	28
4804618830	Pyramid of biomass	A pyramid of biomass is a more accurate indication of how much energy is passed on at each trophic level. Biomass is the mass of living material in each organism multiplied by the total number of organisms in that trophic level.	29
4804620775	Biogeochemical cycles	In Earth science, a biogeochemical cycle or substance turnover or cycling of substances is a pathway by which a chemical substance moves through both biotic (biosphere) and abiotic (lithosphere, atmosphere, and hydrosphere) components of Earth.	30