Bio
A consumer that eats other consumers
What is carnivore?
The fluid layer of the upper mantle, on which tectonic plates move
What is asthenosphere?
Shared, limited resource become depleted due to people acting on self-interest or short-term gain.
What is tragedy of the commons?
when small amounts of salts in irrigation water become highly concentrated on the soil surface through evaporation
What is soil salinization?
Species with a broad ecoloigcal niche
What is generalist species?
A layer within the Earth's atmosphere that extends from about 50 km to about 90 km
What is mesosphere?
The decomposed form of plants and animals which is added to the soil to improve fertility
What is manure?
Cutting down only some trees in a forest and leaving a mix of tree sizes and species behind
What is selective cutting?
The service provided by natural systems that helps regulate environmental conditions
What is regulating services?
The leeward side of a mountain range which is left dry and arid
What is rain shadow?
The growth of low-density development on the edges of cities and towns
What is urban sprawl?
A feedback loop in which change in a system is amplified
What is a positive feedback loop?
Occurs when a coral become stressed and expels most of the algae, leaving a skeleton of calcium carbonate
What is coral bleaching?
The process that creates new lithosphere on the sea floor plates move away from each other at the mid-ocean ridges
What is seafloor spreading?
A combination of methods that if used in the proper order at the proper times, keep the pest population low enough
What is Integrated Pest Management (IPM)?
The restoration of land and environmental values to a mining site after the coal is extracted.
What is reclamation?
Bottom of an aquatic ecosystem; consists of sand and sediment and supports its own community of organisms
What is benthic zone?
A curved chain of volcanic islands that form where a tectonic plate moves over a geologic hotspot
What is an island arc?
As population shifts to the suburbs, city revenue shrinks, positive feedback that accelerates the degradation of city
What is urban blight?
An oceanic circulation pattern that drives the mixing of surface water and deep water
What is thermohaline circulation?