The Biosphere
A group of individuals of the same species occupying the same area at the same time
What is a population?
The percentage of energy that is transferred from one trophic level to the next
What is 10%?
The term for an organism's feeding level in a food chain
What is trophic level?
These gases drive global warming
What are greenhouse gases?
The steps of the hydrological cycle, beginning with water's return from the atmosphere
What are precipitation, water pathways/runoff, evaporation, and condensation?
The term for an organism that has disappeared from a former habitat but still exists in the wild.
What is extirpated?
An organism that uses the Sun's energy and raw materials to make its own food
What is an autotroph?
A carnivore that feeds on an herbivore is this kind of consumer
What is a secondary consumer?
A way in which humans directly release carbon to the atmosphere
What is combustion (cellular respiration, combustion of fossil fuels)?
The loss of water through plant leaves
What is transpiration?
A species sensitive to small changes in environmental conditions
What is an indicator species?
The study of interactions between organisms and their living and non-living environment.
What is ecology?
When referring to its diet, a decomposer can also be called this
What is a detritivore?
The two chemical processes that drive life and the carbon and oxygen cycles
What are photosynthesis and cellular respiration?
The only matter cycle that doesn't involve the atmosphere
What is the phosphorus cycle?
The three zones of the biosphere
What are the lithosphere, the hydrosphere, and the atmosphere?
These laws state that energy cannot be created nor destroyed and energy conversions are never 100% efficient
What are the first two laws of thermodynamics?
What is biomagnification?
Slowly decomposing plant matter produced in low-oxygen environments such as bogs
What is peat?
Two methods of nitrogen fixation
What are lightning and nitrogen-fixing bacteria?
Three factors that have led to the decline of amphibians
What are habitat loss, air & water pollution, climate change, and over-exploitation?
The process by which non-photosynthetic organisms convert inorganic chemicals to organic compounds
What is chemosynthesis?
The energy available to tertiary consumers in a closed system in which producers capture 200 000 kJ of energy from the sun each year
What is 200 kJ?
The names of the organic and inorganic forms of carbon that take are produced and consumed by photosynthesis
What are glucose and carbon dioxide?
The gases that contribute to acid deposition
What are sulphur dioxide and nitrous oxides?