AP Biology; Chapter 42 Flashcards

8227994422	chemoautotrophs	obtain energy by oxidizing sulfur taken up by their sulfate rich environment, they use iron as a final electron acceptor in their reactions	0
8228033042	ecosystem	the sum of all the organisms living in a given area and the abiotic factors with which they interact, encompasses a vast area	1
8228043810	photosynthetic and chemosynthetic organisms	take up elements in inorganic form from the air, soil, and water and incorporate them into their biomass, some of which is consumed by animals	2
8228075737	cells	transform energy and matter, subject to the laws of thermodynamics	3
8228083448	ecosystem ecologists	study how energy and matter are transformed within a system and measure the amounts of both that cross the system's boundaries	4
8228101980	first law of thermodynamics	energy cannot be created or destroyed by only transferred or transformed	5
8228115245	second law of thermodynamics	every exchange of energy increases the entropy of the universe	6
8228838026	law of conservation of mass	a physical law stating that matter can change form but cannot be created or destroyed. In a closed system, the mass of the system is constant	7
8229037332	primary producers	an autotroph, usually a photosynthetic organism. Collectively, autotrophs make up the trophic level of an ecosystem that ultimately supports all other levels	8
8229055459	primary consumers	an herbivore; an organism that eats plants or other autotrophs	9
8229064692	secondary consumers	a carnivore that eats herbivores	10
8229070152	tertiary consumer	a carnivore that eats other carnivores	11
8229075584	detritivore	a consumer that derives its energy and nutrients from nonliving organic material such as corpses, fallen plant material, and the wastes of living organisms; a decomposer	12
8229093152	decomposer	an organism that absorbs nutrients from nonliving organic material such as corpses, fallen plant material, and the wastes of living organisms and converts them to inorganic forms; a detritivore	13
8229116315	detritus	dead organic matter	14
8229129613	primary production	the amount of light energy converted to chemical energy (organic compounds) by the autotrophs in an ecosystem during a given time period	15
8229158254	gross primary production (GPP)	the total primary production of an ecosystem; the amount of energy from light converted to the chemical energy of organic molecules per unit time	16
8229172933	net primary production (NPP)	the gross primary production of an ecosystem minus the energy used by the producers for respiration	17
8229218360	net ecosystem production (NEP)	the gross primary production of an ecosystem minus the energy used by all autotrophs and heterotrophs for respiration	18
8229239969	limiting nutrient	an element that must be added for production to increase in a particular area	19
8229264512	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 cyanbacteria	20
8229299070	secondary production	the amount of chemical energy in consumers' food that is converted to their own new biomass during a given time period	21
8229318812	production efficiency	the percentage of energy stored in assimilated food that is not used for respiration or eliminated as waste	22
8229336499	trophic efficiency	the percentage of production transferred from one trophic level to the next	23
8229348975	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 population	24
8229365006	biogeochemical cycle	any of the various chemical cycles that involve both biotic and abiotic components of ecosystems	25
8229376769	water	availability influences the rates of ecosystem processes particularly primary production and decomposition in terrestrial ecosystems	26
8229390852	key processes of the water cycle	evaporation of liquid water by solar energy, condensation of water vapor into clouds, ,and precipitation. Transpiration by terrestrial plants also moves large volumes of water into the atmosphere. Surface and groundwater flow can return water to the oceans	27
8230912781	key processes of the carbon cycle	photosynthesis by plants and phytoplankton removes substantial amounts of atmospheric carbon dioxide	28
8230932392	nitrogen fixation	the conversion of N2 to forms that can be used to synthesize organic nitrogen compounds	29
8230957497	key processes of the phosphorus cycle	weathering of rocks gradually adds phosphorus to soil	30
8231033014	bioremediation	the use of organisms to detoxify and restore polluted and degraded ecosystems	31
8231047035	biological augmentation	an approach to restoration ecology that uses organisms to add essential materials to a degraded ecosystem	32
8231087630	limitation of aquatic systems	light and nutrients	33
8231090602	limitation of terrestrial ecosystems	climatic factors such as temperature and moisture	34