Chapter 3: Earth's Spheres
This Earth sphere includes all living organisms.
What is the biosphere?
These are the levels of biological organization from simplest to most complex: organism, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere.
What are the levels of organization in a biosphere?
These organisms make their own food, usually through photosynthesis.
What are producers?
This biome has permanently frozen soil called permafrost.
What is the tundra?
These three groups classify aquatic organisms by location and adaptations: drifting organisms, free-swimming organisms, and bottom-dwellers.
What are plankton, nekton, and benthos?
This is the correct sequence for the basic water cycle: water changes from liquid to vapor, vapor cools and forms clouds, water falls to Earth, and water collects or flows over land.
What are evaporation, condensation, precipitation, and collection/runoff?
A group of organisms of the same species living in the same area is called this.
What is a population?
In a food chain or food web, the arrows show this direction.
What is the direction that energy and matter move from one organism to another?
This biome has deep, fertile soil rich in humus; seasonal rainfall and natural fires help maintain grass dominance.
What is a grassland?
This aquatic ecosystem is covered with water for part of the year and includes marshes and swamps.
What is a wetland?
This process is the movement of soil and rock from one location to another by water, wind, ice, or gravity.
What is erosion?
This is the process by which individuals with favorable variations survive and reproduce more successfully than less well-adapted individuals.
What is natural selection?
This process uses light energy to convert carbon dioxide and water into glucose and oxygen.
What is photosynthesis?
This is the largest terrestrial biome, found in the Northern Hemisphere just south of the Arctic Circle; its soil is thin, acidic, and nutrient-poor.
What is the taiga?
This process occurs when excess nutrients enter a lake, causing excessive plant and algae growth; runoff can speed it up.
What is eutrophication?
The atmosphere can provide precipitation, the hydrosphere can erode the geosphere, and the biosphere can depend on water and air.
What is an example of interaction among Earth’s spheres?
This is the process of becoming adapted to an environment, while this is the ability of an organism to tolerate a chemical or disease-causing agent.
What are adaptation and resistance?
Organisms that break down dead matter and wastes return nutrients to the environment; these organisms are especially important in nutrient cycles.
What are decomposers?
This biome receives little precipitation, has intense sunlight, and may be either hot or cold; desertification is a threat.
What is the desert?
This is the place where fresh water mixes with salt water; it is highly productive because it is nutrient-rich and protected.
What is an estuary?
This sphere includes Earth’s rocks, minerals, landforms, and interior; when moving water carries soil from it into a river, two Earth spheres interact.
What are the geosphere and the hydrosphere?
Charles Darwin was the English naturalist who observed that organisms in a population differ in form, function, and behavior; his ideas helped explain this process.
What is evolution by natural selection?
These bacteria convert atmospheric nitrogen into forms that plants can use.
What are nitrogen-fixing bacteria?
This biome is near the equator, has frequent rainfall, nutrient-poor soil, rapid decomposition, and more than half of Earth’s species.
What is the tropical rain forest?
This 1972 law established a basic framework to regulate pollutant discharges into United States waters, including rivers such as the Chattahoochee River.
What is the Clean Water Act of 1972?