Basic Ecological Concepts
An ecosystem
What is a community of living organisms interacting with their physical environment?
This ecosystem provides habitats for wildlife, filters water, and helps to prevent flooding.
What are wetlands?
Today, large areas of former grasslands, particularly in states like Kansas, Nebraska, and Iowa, have been converted into fields of corn, wheat, and soybeans. This is known as ______ farming.
What is monoculture?
This biome is in Alaska, characterized by cold temperatures and coniferous trees.
What is the boreal forest, or taiga?
All the Crape Myrtle trees in the front of the school represent what level of ecological organization
What is a population?
Three biotic factors in an ecosystem
What are plants, animals, and microorganisms?
In the 1930's, the removal of native grasses for wheat farming in the central plains, combined with drought, led to severe soil erosion, creating this event.
What is the Dust Bowl?
This practice reduces plant cover, leading to soil erosion and the transformation of grasslands into deserts.
What is overgrazing?
Logging alters this cycle by reducing canopy cover, which leads to changes in evapotranspiration and increased runoff, affecting local streams and rivers.
What is the water cycle?
A hawk ate a snake that ate a mouse that ate a plant. This organism is an herbivore.
What is the mouse?
The amount of energy that is LOST between trophic levels in a food chain.
What is 90%?
As permafrost thaws, organic material that has been frozen for thousands of years begins to decompose, releasing large amounts of carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere which increases this.
What is global climate change?
The extensive use of fertilizers and pesticides has also contributed to _____ pollution in nearby rivers and lakes.
What is water pollution?
The US National Forest System public lands are essential for conservation, recreation, and sustainable resource use. They are managed by this agency.
What is the US Forest Service?
An owl ate a frog that ate a grasshopper that ate the grass. The trophic level of the frog is this.
What is a secondary consumer?
This biome contains oak trees, flowering shrubs, deer, raccoons, and many songbirds...and you live here!
What is the Deciduous forest?
This biome has experienced an increase in oil and gas extraction through fracking, which involves drilling deep into the earth and injecting water and chemicals to release natural gas or oil.
What is the desert?
This type of grassland is found in the eastern parts of the Great Plains, with rich soil and abundant rainfall, dominated by species like big bluestem and switchgrass.
What are the Tallgrass Prairies?
This forest management strategy removes excess undergrowth and dead vegetation, reducing fuel for wildfires.
What is controlled burns (or prescribed burns)?
This is the formula to calculate ecosystem biodiveristy.
What is # of species / # of organisms?
These illustrate the complex interactions between multiple food chains in an ecosystem
What are food webs?
Elevated pipelines and buildings on stilts are examples of technologies used to reduce the heat transfer that can lead to permafrost thawing. This is called what?
What is permafrost protection?
Much of the land in the western United States is managed by the federal government through agencies like this.
What is the BLM (Bureau of Land Management)?
Forests absorb CO2 during photosynthesis and store carbon in biomass and soil. This is called...
What is carbon sequestration?
This is how humans are impacting wild ecosystems the most.
What is habitat destruction?