Unit 1
A set of interacting components.
What is a system?
Two or more atoms bonded by shared electrons.
What is a molecule?
The total amount of dry mass (living material) measured over an area.
What is biomass?
Anything added to the environment that has a negative effect on the environment or its organisms.
What is pollution?
An organism that naturally belongs to and lives in an environment without human involvement.
What are the native species?
The nonliving components of ecosystems.
A molecule made up of subunits called adenine, ribose, and three phosphate groups which is used as energy for cells.
What is ATP?
Models the transfer of energy, beginning with producers and working up the food chain to the top-level consumer.
What is an energy pyramid?
Gases that act as insulators of carbon dioxide released from burning fossil fuels slow down the escape of energy that is emitted from the Earth.
What are greenhouse gases?
Proteins, carbohydrates, nucleic acids, and lipids.
What are the four major classes of biological macromolecules?
The system where all living things exist and interact on Earth.
What is the biosphere?
A process used by plants to transform light energy, water, and carbon dioxide into energy (glucose) for the plant.
What is photosynthesis?
A model showing the complex network of feeding relationships between trophic levels and the flow of energy within and beyond ecosystems.
What is a food web?
It occurs when a barrier (road or cleared landscape) divides a larger habitat into smaller sections, limiting access to the habitat.
What is habitat fragmentation?
An aerobic (with oxygen) process releasing chemical energy from glucose and carbon-based molecules to create ATP.
What is cellular respiration?
A species that has an especially strong effect on an entire ecosystem. Without this species, the ecosystem will eventually fail.
An anaerobic process (without oxygen) that creates ATP using only glycolysis (glucose to ATP) and releases lactic acid (burning feeling).
What is fermentation?
A process where certain bacteria transform nitrogen into ammonia, a more usable form for living organisms.
What is nitrogen fixation?
The balance between the incoming radiant energy from the sun and outgoing thermal radiant energy emissions from the Earth.
What is the Earth's Energy budget
Organelle cellular respiration takes place, which releases the chemical energy required to make ATP in plant and animal cells, known as the "powerhouses of the cell."
What are mitochondria?
What is mutualism?
Aquatic, single-celled organisms that evolved 3.5 billion years ago were the first to carry out photosynthesis, leading to the Great Oxidation Event and contributing significant amounts of oxygen to the atmosphere.
What is Cyanobacteria?
A microbial process where nitrate and nitrite are reduced to form gaseous nitrogen and nitrous oxide.
What is denitrification?
A measurement of the amount of light that a particular physical surface will reflect. Ex: Ice has 0.5 (50% light reflection) but water has 0.06 (6% light reflection).
What is albedo?
The movement of energy caused by motion in matter as a result of varying density, moving thermal energy through liquids or gases.
What is convection?