Ecosystems & Biomes
What term describes a close relationship between two species where one benefits and the other is neither helped nor harmed?
What is Commensalism
The primary process by which inorganic carbon dioxide is removed from the atmosphere and converted into organic compounds.
What is photosynthesis?
The major reservoir that the phosphorus cycle lacks compared to the carbon, nitrogen, and hydrologic cycles.
What is an atmospheric (or gaseous) stage?
The mathematical formula that relates Gross Primary Productivity (GPP), Net Primary Productivity (NPP), and Cellular Respiration (R).
What is NPP = GPP - R
Organisms that produce their own organic nutrients using light or chemical energy.
What are autotrophs (or primary producers)?
What mechanism allows similar species sharing a habitat to reduce competition by utilizing different resources or areas?
What is Resource Partitioning?
The step in the nitrogen cycle where specialized bacteria convert atmospheric nitrogen gas into usable ammonia
What is nitrogen fixation?
The primary natural reservoir for phosphorus in the environment.
What are sedimentary rocks (or soil/sediments)?
The percentage of energy typically transferred from one trophic level to the next higher level.
What is 10% (The 10% Rule)?
An organism that feeds directly on primary producers.
What is a primary consumer (or herbivore)?
Which terrestrial biome features cold temperatures, low precipitation, and a layer of permanently frozen subsoil?
What is the Tundra?
The major long-term geological sink for carbon that humans burn to release CO2 back into the atmosphere.
What are fossil fuels?
The process in the hydrologic cycle driven primarily by solar energy where liquid water turns into vapor.
What is evaporation?
The unit of measure commonly used to express rates of primary productivity.
What is kcal/m^2/yr
The direction arrows point in a food web or food chain diagram.
What is the direction of energy flow (from the organism eaten to the organism eating)?
Name the shallow aquatic zone in lakes where rooted aquatic plants grow because light reaches the bottom.
What is the Littoral Zone?
The process in which soil bacteria convert soil nitrates back into atmospheric nitrogen gas
What is denitrification?
The release of water vapor from the leaves of plants into the atmosphere.
What is transpiration?
The second law of thermodynamics explains that as energy flows through trophic levels, much of it is lost to the environment as this un-usable form.
What is low-quality heat (or entropy)?
An event where adding or removing a top predator ripples through multiple trophic levels, altering lower levels.
What is a trophic cascade?
The symbiotic relationship where coral polyps provide shelter and zooxanthellae algae provide photosynthetic sugars.
mutualism
The primary reason excess synthetic nitrogen fertilizers running off into water bodies causes environmental harm.
What is cultural eutrophication (or algal blooms / dead zones)?
The reason phosphorus is typically a limiting factor in freshwater aquatic ecosystems.
What is its slow rate of release from rocks via weathering?
Two of the highest NPP biomes per unit area globally (one terrestrial, one aquatic).
What are tropical rainforests and coral reefs (or estuaries)?
If a producer population stores 10,000 kcal of net primary production, the amount of energy available to a tertiary consumer in that ecosystem.
What is 10 kcal