GWHS AP Biology - Ecosystems Flashcards

6318832956	trophic levels	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	0
6318832957	photosynthetic autotrophs	Organisms that use light for the energy to synthesize organic compounds	1
6318832958	primary producers	organisms in an ecosystem that produce biomass from inorganic compounds	2
6318832959	primary consumers	organisms that eat the autotrophs	3
6318832960	secondary consumers	eat primary consumers	4
6318832961	tertiary consumers	a carnivore at the topmost level in a food chain that feeds on other carnivores	5
6318832962	turnover time	Measure of the movement of an element in a biogeochemical cycle	6
6318832963	production efficiency	Measure of the amount of biomass stored by consumers relative to the amount of food they successfully absorbed	7
6318832964	trophic efficiency	describes the efficiency with which energy is transferred from one trophic level to the next	8
6318832965	evapotransipiration	sum of evaporation and plant transpiration from the Earth's land and ocean surface to the atmosphere	9
6318832966	chemoautotroph	an organism that uses inorganic energy sources for food. Then it puts together its own organic compounds using ATP	10
6318832967	gross primary production	the amount of chemical energy as biomass that primary producers create in a given length of time	11
6318832968	net primary production	the rate at which plants incorporate atmospheric carbon through photosynthesis	12
6318832969	biomass	biological material derived from living, or recently living organisms	13
6318832970	eutrophication	the enrichment of an ecosystem with chemical nutrients, typically compounds containing nitrogen, phosphorus, or both	14
6318832971	detritivores	an organism that feeds on dead and decomposing organic matter	15
6318832972	nitrogen fixation	is a process in which nitrogen (N2) in the atmosphere is converted into ammonium (NH4+) or nitrogen dioxide (NO. 2)	16
6318832973	nitrification	the biological oxidation of ammonia or ammonium to nitrite followed by the oxidation of the nitrite to nitrate	17
6318832974	dentrification	microbially facilitated process of nitrate reduction (performed by a large group of heterotrophic facultative anaerobic bacteria) that may ultimately produce molecular nitrogen (N2) through a series of intermediate gaseous nitrogen oxide products	18
6318832975	carbon cycle	the biogeochemical cycle by which carbon is exchanged among the biosphere, pedosphere, geosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere of the Earth	19
6318832976	nitrogen cycle	the process by which nitrogen is converted between its various chemical forms	20
6318832977	water cycle	also known as the hydrologic cycle or the H2O cycle, describes the continuous movement of water on, above and below the surface of the Earth	21
6318832978	biological magnification	often refers to the process whereby certain substances such as pesticides or heavy metals move up the food chain, work their way into rivers or lakes, and are eaten by aquatic organisms such as fish, which in turn are eaten by large birds, animals or humans	22
6318832979	greenhouse effect	a process by which thermal radiation from a planetary surface is absorbed by atmospheric greenhouse gases, and is re-radiated in all directions	23
6318832980	law of conservation of mass	that mass can neither be created nor destroyed, although it may be rearranged in space, or the entities associated with it may be changed in form, as for example when light or physical work is transformed into particles that contribute the same mass to the system as the light or work had contributed	24
6318832981	acid precipitation	rain or any other form of precipitation that is unusually acidic, meaning that it possesses elevated levels of hydrogen ions (low pH)	25