nutrient
Any food, element, or compound an organism must take in to live, grow, or reproduce.
Subject:
Chapter 4 - Ecosystems: Components, Energy Flow, and Matter Cycling
nitrogen fixation
Conversion of atmospheric nitrogen gas into forms useful to plants by lightning, bacteria, and cyanobacteria; part of the nitrogen cycle.
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nitrogen cycle
Cyclic movement of nitrogen in different chemical forms from the environment to organisms and then back to the environment.
Subject:
net primary productivity (NPP)
Rate at which all the plants in an ecosystem produce net useful chemical energy; equal to the difference between the rate at which the plants in an ecosystem produce useful chemical energy (gross primary productivity) and the rate at which they use some of that energy through cellular respiration. Compare gross primary productivity.
Subject:
natural greenhouse effect
Heat buildup in the troposphere because of the presence of certain gases, called greenhouse gases. Without this effect, the earth would be nearly as cold as Mars, and life as we know it could not exist. Compare global warming.
Subject:
monera
See bacteria, cyanobacteria.
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microorganisms
Organisms such as bacteria that are so small they can be seen only by using a microscope.
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lithosphere
Outer shell of the earth, composed of the crust and the rigid, outermost part of the mantle outside the asthenosphere; material found in earth's plates. See crust, mantle.
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limiting factor principle
Too much or too little of any abiotic factor can limit or prevent growth of a population of a species in an ecosystem, even if all other factors are at or near the optimum range of tolerance for the species. See range of tolerance.
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limiting factor
Single factor that limits the growth, abundance, or distribution of the population of a species in an ecosystem. See limiting factor principle.
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