Biomes & Ecosystems
This terrestrial biome is characterized by permafrost and low-growing vegetation like lichens and mosses.
Tundra
Unlike the Carbon or Nitrogen cycles, this cycle does not have a significant atmospheric component.
Phosphorus Cycle
The process by which plants "sweat" or release water vapor through their stomata.
Transpiration
According to this rule, only about this percentage of energy is passed from one trophic level to the next.
10%
A linear sequence of organisms through which nutrients and energy pass.
Food Chain
These "marine nurseries" occur where freshwater rivers meet the salty ocean, providing high nutrient levels and biodiversity.
Estuaries
This process, often done by bacteria in the soil or lightning, converts atmospheric N2 into a form plants can actually use.
Nitrogen Fixation
Most of Earth's freshwater is not found in lakes or rivers, but is "locked up" here
Ice caps and Glaciers
As the Earth warms, permafrost melts, releasing methane gas which further increases global temperatures. This is an example of this type of feedback loop.
Positive Feedback Loop
This trophic level contains the most biomass in any healthy ecosystem
Producers
This symbiotic relationship benefits one species while the other is neither helped nor harmed (e.g., orchids growing on trees).
Commensalism
This is the largest reservoir (sink) of carbon on Earth.
Ocean (or Marine Sediments/Sedimentary Rock)
This term describes the movement of water into the soil and eventually into groundwater aquifers.
Infiltration (or Percolation)
Organisms that make their own food through photosynthesis are known by this term.
Autotrophs (or Producers)
If a hawk eats a snake that ate a mouse that ate grass, the hawk is considered this level of consumer.
Tertiary Consumer
In lakes, this zone is the shallow area near the shore where emergent plants like cattails grow.
Littoral Zone
These are the two primary biological processes that drive the Carbon Cycle.
Photosynthesis and Cellular Respiration
This is the primary "engine" or energy source that drives the entire hydrologic cycle
Sun
In an energy pyramid, most of the lost energy is dissipated into the environment in this form.
Heat
These organisms, such as fungi and bacteria, break down dead organic matter and return nutrients to the soil.
Decomposers/Detrivores
This biome has the highest net primary productivity (NPP) due to high temperatures and consistent rainfall year-round.
Tropical Rainforest
The process by which nitrate is converted back into nitrogen gas (N2) and released into the atmosphere.
Denitrification
The conversion of a substance from a solid directly to a gas without passing through the liquid phase (e.g., snow to water vapor)
Sublimation
This is the total amount of solar energy that producers in an ecosystem capture via photosynthesis over a given amount of time.
Gross Primary Productivity (GPP)
Often occurring in aquatic ecosystems, this "lethal" phenomenon begins with a Bottom-Up surge of nutrients, leading to a massive producer bloom, a subsequent population crash, and a total depletion of dissolved oxygen known as hypoxia.
Eutrophication