Photosynthesis
The primary green pigment in plants that absorbs light energy to drive photosynthesis.
What is Chlorophyll?
The biological process that acts as a carbon sink by pulling CO2 out of the atmosphere and putting it into living tissue.
What is photosynthesis?
The two primary chemical reactants required for aerobic cellular respiration to take place.
What are glucose and oxygen?
The maximum population size of a species that an ecosystem can sustainably support based on its available resources.
What is carrying capacity?
This term describes a non-native species introduced to an ecosystem that outcompetes local wildlife and disrupts the natural food web.
What is an invasive species?
Photosynthesis transforms light energy into this specific form of energy stored within organic molecules.
What is stored chemical energy?
The Earth sphere or system where fossil fuel deposits are stored for millions of years before being extracted.
What is the geosphere (or lithosphere/crust)?
When you exercise intensely and your muscle cells run out of oxygen, they switch to this anaerobic process, which causes temporary muscle fatigue.
What is lactic acid fermentation?
These factors, such as a severe storm or a wildfire, affect a population's size regardless of how crowded or sparse that population is.
What are density-independent factors?
A timber company leaves "islands" of old trees intact during harvest and leaves dead logs on the forest floor to maintain native bird habitats. This practice is an alternative to this destructive logging method.
What is clear-cutting?
These two high-energy molecules are generated during the light reactions and serve as the "fuel" to power the Calvin Cycle.
What are ATP and NADPH?
This cellular process does the exact opposite of photosynthesis by breaking down sugars and releasing carbon dioxide gas.
What is cellular respiration?
The primary chemical energy currency molecule that cells temporarily use to store energy released during respiration.
What is ATP (adenosine triphosphate)?
Disease spreads much faster through a crowded bird colony than a scattered one, making disease this type of ecological limiting factor.
What is a density-dependent factor?
When a new highway splits a forest in half, it causes this major ecological issue, isolating gene pools and endangering wildlife.
What is habitat fragmentation?
The specific location inside the chloroplast where the light-dependent reactions take place.
What are the thylakoid membranes (or grana)?
Over millions of years, heat and pressure transform the buried remains of ancient swamps into this specific geological carbon reservoir.
What are fossil fuels (coal, oil, natural gas)?
The correct sequence of the three major stages of aerobic cellular respiration.
What is Glycolysis →Krebs Cycle →Electron Transport Chain?
In a balanced ecosystem data model, this is what happens to a prey population shortly after the predator population peaks.
What is it decreases (or crashes)?
To reduce air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from burning gasoline, the car industry is rapidly shifting production away from traditional engines toward these vehicles powered entirely by rechargeable battery packs.
What are electric vehicles?
If a scientist blocks a plant's electron transport chain in the thylakoid, this specific part of photosynthesis will stop instantly because it can no longer get its chemical fuel.
What is the Calvin Cycle (or light-independent reactions)?
The immediate expected atmospheric feedback if widespread deforestation removes 30% of global forest biomass.
What is an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide?
During respiration, the carbon atoms from glucose are completely broken apart and exhaled as this specific waste gas.
What is carbon dioxide (CO₂)?
This J-shaped mathematical curve represents a population growing without any resource limitations or predators.
What is exponential growth?
This toxic process occurs when a persistent pesticide like DDT becomes more and more concentrated in the tissues of organisms as it moves up the food chain.
What is biomagnification (or bioaccumulation)?