Ch. 3 Flashcards
Tertiary
Feed on the flesh of herbivores.
Omnivores
Eat both plants and animals.
Decomposers
Process of obtaining their nutrients, release nutrients from the wastes or remains of plants and animals and return those nutrients to the soil, water, and air for reuse by producers.
Detritus feeders
Feed on the wastes or dead bodies of other organisms.
Aerobic respiration
Uses of oxygen to convert glucose back into carbon dioxide and water.
Food chain
Sequence of organisms each of which serves as a source of nutrients or energy for the next.
Food web
Show how producers consumers and decomposers are connected to one another as energy flows through trophic levels in an ecosystem.
Pyramid of energy flow
Illustrates this energy loss for a simple food chain.
Gross primary productivity
Rate at which an ecosystems producers convert solar energy into chemical energy stored in compounds found in their tissues.
Net primary productivity
The rate at which producers use photosynthesis to produce and store chemical energy stored in compounds found in their tissues.
Nutrient cycles
Elements and compounds that make up nutrients move continually through air, water, soil, rock, and living organisms within ecosystems.
Water cycle
Collects, purifies, and distributes the earths fixed supply of water.
Surface runoff
Water flows into streams, rivers, lakes, wetlands, and oceans from which it can evaporate to repeat the cycle.
Aquifers
Perception also sinks through soil into under around layers of rock, sand, and gravel.
Carbon cycle
Various compounds of carbon circulate through the biosphere the atmosphere and parts of the hydrosphere.
Nitrogen cycle
Reactions involving lighting and by specialized bacteria found in the top layer of soil.
Phosphorus cycle
Compounds of phosphorus circulate through water the earths crust and living organisms.
Sulfur cycle
Sulfur circulates through the biosphere.
Secondary consumers
Feed on the flesh of herbivores.
Carnivors
Animals that feed on the flesh of other animals.
Primary consumers
Animals that eat mostly green plants.
Heterotrophs
Cannot produce the nutrients they need through photosynthesis or other processes.
Producers
Make the nutrients they need from compounds and energy obtained from their environment.
Trophic level
Depending on its source of nutrients.
Ecology
The science that focuses on how organisms interact with one another and with their non living environment of matter and energy.
Greenhouse effect
Water vapor and several other gases in the troposphere it warms the troposphere.
Biosphere
Consists of the parts of the atmosphere, hydrosphere and geosphere where life is found.
Geosphere
Consist of the earths intensely hot core a thick mantle composed mostly of rock.
Hydrosphere
Made up of all the water on or near the earths surface.
Stratosphere
Holds enough ozone gas to filter out about 95% of the suns harmful ultraviolet radiation.
Troposphere
Extends about 17 kilometers above sea level at the topics and about 7 kilometers above the earths north and south poles.
Atmosphere
Thin spherical envelope of gases surrounding the earths surface.
