Chapter 25 Flashcards
The intricately linked network of biological and physical processes that shuttles carbon among rocks, soil, oceans, air, and organisms.
carbon cycle
The co-occurrence of two events or processes; correlation does not imply causation.
correlation
A relationship in which one event leads to another.
Causation
A supply or source of a substance. Reservoirs of carbon, for example, include organisms, the atmosphere, soil, the oceans, and sedimentary rocks.
Reservoir
The rate at which a substance, for example carbon, flows from one reservoir to another.
Flux
The set of all populations found in a given place.
Community
An organism that takes up inorganic carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, and other compounds from the environment and converts them into organic compounds that will provide food for other organisms in the local environment.
primary producer
An organism that obtains the carbon it needs for growth and reproduction from the foods it eats and gains energy by respiring food molecules; heterotrophic organisms of all kinds that directly consume primary producers or consume those that do.
Consumer
Herbivores, which consume primary (plant or algae) producers. Sometimes called grazers.
primary consumers
Predators or scavengers that feed on primary consumers.
secondary consumers
A monophyletic group of animals, including cats, dogs, seals and their relatives, that consume other animals.
carnivores
An organism that breaks down dead tissues, feeding on the dead cells or bodies of other organisms.
decomposer
A map of the interactions that connect consumer and producer organisms within the carbon cycle; the movement of carbon through an ecosystem.
food web
Biological diversity; the aggregate number of species, or, more broadly, also the diversity of genetic sequences, cell types, metabolism, life history, phylogenetic groups, communities, and ecosystems.
biodiversity
Explain the difference between correlation and causation.
b
