Cycles & Processes
Plants release water vapor through small openings in their leaves during this process.
Transpiration
These organisms make their own food and form the first trophic level.
producers/autotrophs
The solid outer part of Earth, including the crust and uppermost mantle. What is this sphere called?
Lithosphere
Solar, wind, hydroelectric, geothermal, and biomass are examples of this type of resource.
Renewable Resource
This means meeting present needs without preventing future generations from meeting their needs.
Sustainability
This process uses carbon dioxide, water, and light energy to make glucose and oxygen.
Photosynthesis
This is the maximum population size an environment can support.
carrying capacity
These gases absorb and re-release heat, helping keep Earth warm.
Greenhouse Gases
This increases when roads, parking lots, and buildings prevent water from soaking into the ground.
Runoff
This federal agency sets and enforces environmental standards across the country.
EPA
This nitrogen cycle process is carried out mainly by bacteria and changes nitrogen gas into usable nitrogen compounds.
Sea otters are considered this because they have a major effect on the stability of a kelp forest ecosystem.
keystone species
Heat moves from a hot object to a cooler object through direct contact, like when a metal spoon gets warm in a bowl of soup.
Conduction
Pollution that comes from many places, such as oil, fertilizer, and trash washing off streets after rain.
non-point pollution
This law helps clean up hazardous waste sites and can hold polluters responsible.
Superfund Act
This process returns nitrates to the atmosphere as nitrogen gas.
Denitrification
Disease, competition, and limited food are examples of this type of limiting factor because their effects depend on population size.
density-dependent limiting factors
This happened mainly because CFCs released chlorine atoms in the stratosphere
Ozone Depletion
This happens when toxins build up in an organism’s body over time.
bioaccumulation
This occurs when individuals overuse a shared resource for personal benefit, harming everyone in the long run.
Tragedy of the Commons
In a pond, fertilizer runoff causes rapid algae growth. After the algae die, bacteria break them down and dissolved oxygen decreases. This process is called what?
Eutrophication
Genetic differences passed from parents to offspring can help some organisms survive and reproduce more successfully.
Natural Selection
When carbon dioxide dissolves into ocean water and lowers pH, this process occurs.
ocean acidification
Modern landfills use clay and plastic liners mainly to protect this resource from polluted liquid.
Groundwater
Name three international environmental agreements we talked about
The main ones were CITES, the Basel Convention, and the Montreal Protocol