Biogeochemical Cycles
In this cycle plants absorb carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere during photosynthesis.
What is the carbon cycle?
In this process water falls from clouds onto earth's surface
What is precipitation?
This type of succession happens after a natural disaster where soil remains intact.
What is secondary succession?
These organisms form the base of the energy pyramid by producing their own food.
What are producers?
This includes all the living and nonliving factors interacting in an area.
What is an ecosystem?
The process in which liquid water in plants escapes as water vapor through small pores called stomata.
What is Transpiration?
Most of Earth's Carbon is stored here
What is below the surface?
These organisms help break down rocks during primary succession
What are lichens?
These organisms obtain energy by eating producers.
What are primary consumers?
A sudden decrease in pond temperature is an example of a change in this type of factor.
What is an abiotic factor?
This process converts atmospheric nitrogen gas (N2) into a more usable form such as ammonia, that plants can absorb?
What is Nitrogen Fixation?
This process returns carbon dioxide (CO2) to the atmosphere when organisms break down glucose (sugar) for energy.
What is cellular respiration?
During succession, this term describes the variety of different species living in an ecosystem.
What is Biodiversity?
This percentage of energy is typically transferred from one trophic level to the next
What is 10%
This symbiotic relationship benefits both a bee and a flower.
What is mutualism?
This biogeochemical cycle has no significant gas phase
What is the phosphorus cycle?
This process moves phosphorus from rocks into soil and water through breakdown of rock.
What is weathering?
This is a relatively stable, mature community that forms at the final stage of succession
What is a climax community?
If producers contain 10,000 kcal, this amount of energy is available to secondary consumers.
What is 100 kcal?
If a predator is removed from an ecosystem, what might happen to the population of its prey.
What is an increase?
The process where living organisms transform absorbed nutrients into complex biomolecules that become part of their cellular structure and function
What is assimilation?
Two regions rely on different energy sources. One burns large amounts of fossil fuels, while the other uses mostly renewable energy. Predict how this difference could affect atmospheric CO2 levels over time.
Combustion releases stored carbon as CO2 increasing atmospheric carbon levels.
Two ecosystems experience disturbances. One loses all vegetation but keeps its soil, while the other loses both vegetation and soil. Which ecosystem will recover faster, and why?
The one that keeps its soil because plants can immediately begin to grow back.
Why are there generally fewer organisms at the top of an energy pyramid than at the bottom?
Because less energy is available at each trophic level
When two species compete for the same limited resources, in the same place, at the same time, this principle predicts that one will eventually outcompete the other.
What is the competitive exclusion principle?