Environmental Change
The sphere of the environment made up of all living organisms, including plants, animals and microorganisms
What is the biosphere?
The process where plants take in water from the soil and release it into the atmosphere as water vapour
What is transpiration?
This layer of the rainforest endures the most severe weather conditions
What is the emergent layer?
This type of thematic map that uses different colours or shades to show how a particular variable varies across defined areas
What is a choropleth map?
The removal of vegetation can increase erosion and alter soil structure, directly affecting this environmental sphere
What is the lithosphere?
A sequence showing how energy is transferred from one organism to another through feeding
What is a food chain/food web?
The rainforest layer most directly associated with rapid decomposition and nutrient recycling
What is the forest floor?
A graph that shows how a variable changes over a period of time
What is a line graph?
Chemical runoff directly impacts this environmental sphere
The process that releases stored carbon into the atmosphere when organic matter is burned
What is combustion?
This rainforest layer provides habitat for many animals and insects and contains dense vegetation including shrubs, ferns and young trees
What is the understory?
The lines on a topographic map that join places of equal elevation
What are contour lines?
This major consequence of climate change involves the long-term rise in average global sea levels due to melting land ice
What is sea-level rise?
Forests and oceans can act as this by absorbing and storing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere
What is carbon sink?
An important layer for rainforest biodiversity because of its complex network of branches, leaves and liana vines that provide numerous habitats for animals
A grid system used to locate specific places on a topographic map
What is are/grid reference?
The increased absorption of atmospheric carbon dioxide by the oceans causes this environmental change, which reduces seawater pH
What is ocean acidification?
The process in which nitrogen gas is converted into forms that plants can absorb and use
What is nitrogen fixing?
The vertical structure of a rainforest that creates different conditions for light, temperature, moisture and habitat at different heights
What is stratification?
A map has a scale of 1:50 000 means one centimetre on the map represents this distance on the ground
What is 500 metres?