Biogeochemical Cycles
This major cycle has no gas phase and relies entirely on the erosion of sedimentary rock to release its main element into soil and water.
What is the Phosphorus Cycle?
Designated by the letter K, this term represents the maximum population size an ecosystem's resources can sustainably support.
What is Carrying Capacity?
This ecological level consists of all individuals of the same species living within a specified geographical area at the same time.
What is a Population?
Crop pollination by wild bees, timber harvesting, and wild fish catches fall under this primary category of ecosystem services.
What are Provisioning Services?
Passed in 1970, this foundational US law requires federal agencies to prepare Environmental Impact Statements (EIS) before undertaking major actions.
What is NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act)?
This microbially-facilitated process converts soil nitrate (NO3-) back into inert atmospheric nitrogen gas (N2).
What is Denitrification?
Organisms with rapid growth, high fecundity, low parental care, and short lifespans fall under this reproductive strategy category.
What are r-selected species (or r-strategists)?
Unlike an ecosystem, this level of organization includes only the interacting biotic factors (living organisms) of different species within an area.
What is a Community?
Mangrove forests protecting coastlines from storm surges and wetlands filtering pollutants out of groundwater are examples of this service type.
What are Regulating Services?
Superfund is the common name given to this 1980 federal statute designed to clean up uncontrolled hazardous waste sites.
Answer: What is CERCLA (Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act)?
Evapotranspiration combines simple evaporation with this plant-based loss of water vapor through leaf stomata.
What is Transpiration?
This survival pattern exhibits high survival throughout early and middle life, followed by a steep mortality drop in old age.
What is a Type I Survivorship Curve?
The initial establishment of ecological communities on newly formed, completely barren substrate devoid of pre-existing soil is known as this.
What is Primary Succession?
The economic value assigned to unpriced environmental resources when their damage or loss incurs costs to society is known by this economic term.
What is an External Cost (or Negative Externality)?
This international agreement, signed in 1987, successfully phased out global production of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) to protect the ozone layer.
What is the Montreal Protocol?
When excess terrestrial fertilizers run off into water bodies, they trigger this process of nutrient enrichment, algal blooms, and oxygen depletion.
What is Eutrophication?
Unlike density-dependent factors, events such as volcanic eruptions, floods, and droughts regulate populations through this classification.
What are Density-Independent factors?
Lichens and mosses that break down bare rock to create initial organic soil layers in bare environments are known by this collective term.
What are Pioneer Species?
This valuation method calculates the monetary worth of an ecosystem by estimating how much it would cost to artificially replicate its natural functions.
What is the Replacement Cost Approach?
The US Clean Water Act relies heavily on NPDES permits to regulate direct effluent from municipal and industrial plants, known as this type of pollution source.
What is Point Source Pollution?
Atmospheric carbon dioxide dissolves into seawater to form this weak acid, lowering ocean pH and stripping carbonate ions away from calcifying organisms.
What is Carbonic Acid (H2CO3)?
This phenomenon occurs when a population's density drops below a critical threshold, leading to reduced individual fitness and declining growth due to difficulty finding mates.
What is the Allee Effect?
This concept defines the full range of physical and biological conditions a species could theoretically inhabit without competition or limiting factors.
What is a Fundamental Niche?
Ecotourism, spiritual connection, aesthetic value, and recreation belong to this fourth major category of ecosystem services.
What are Cultural Services?
This treaty regulates global commercial trade in endangered wild animals and plants to prevent their extinction.
What is CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species)?