08. Environmental Biology [DEFINITIONS]

Question 1

Environment

Answer 1

The environment is the complex of physical, chemical, and biotic factors that act upon an organism or an ecological community and ultimately determine its form and survival

Question 2

Environmental Biology

Answer 2

A scientific study of the origins, functions, relationships, interactions, and natural history of living populations, communities, species, and ecosystems in relation to dynamic environmental processes.

Question 3

Individual/Organism

Answer 3

The first organizational level of the environment is an individual. An individual is any organism or living thing which has its own characters in physiology, evolution and behavior in relation to environmental factors.

Question 4

Population

Answer 4

A group of individuals of the same species, living in the same area and producing fertile offspring through interbreeding is a population

Question 5

Community

Answer 5

A collection of populations of different species living in the same area interacting with each other is a community.

Question 6

Ecosystem

Answer 6

An ecosystem is a collection of communities as well as the abiotic factors with which they interact

Question 7

Biosphere

Answer 7

The biosphere includes the entire portion of Earth that is inhabited by life.

Question 8

Abiotic Factors

Answer 8

The non living components (physical and chemical factors) of the environment such as water, air, light, temperature, nutrients, sunlight, soil.

Question 9

Biotic Components

Answer 9

The living components of the ecosystem including plants, animals, fungi, bacteria, protists, etc.

Question 10

Niche

Answer 10

A niche is the role that a particular organism plays in the ecosystem, describing what it needs to live and what it does in a particular ecosystem.

Question 11

Habitat

Answer 11

The habitat is the physical area where a species lives.

Question 12

Trophic Level

Answer 12

The producers and consumers in an ecosystem can be arranged into several feeding groups, each known as a trophic level (feeding level)

Question 13

Food Chain

Answer 13

A food chain is a linear sequence of organisms through which nutrients and energy pass from one trophic level to another trophic level of an ecosystem beginning with a primary producer

Question 14

Primary Producer

Answer 14

The primary producers are autotrophs and are most often photosynthetic organisms such as plants, algae, or cyanobacteria. These organisms convert light energy to chemical energy or in another words, produce organic matter.

Question 15

Primary Production

Answer 15

Primary production is the amount of organic matter produced by autotrophs in a given area during a given period of time. (unit: gm-2day-1 or kg ha-1 year -1)

Question 16

Primary Consumers

Answer 16

The organismsm that consume (eat) primary producers

Question 17

Habitat loss/ fragmentation

Answer 17

When natural habitats are converted into other human uses such as agriculture or built up areas, they are no longer able to support species found in the original habitat, resulting in destruction or displacement of biodiversity. This is called habitat loss/ fragmentation.

Question 18

Overexploitation

Answer 18

Harvesting or exploiting biodiversity products in a manner and a rate which it cannot recover within the periods of exploitation leads to danger of biodiversity being completely lost is thus.

Question 19

Pollution

Answer 19

Pollution simply means addition of unwanted materials to air, water, soil.

Question 20

Eutrophication

Answer 20

Due to extensive use of agrochemicals that wash away with rain water into the water bodies make the water rich in nutrients (eutrophication) resulting in algal blooms.