Chapter 55 Flashcards
Energy is ____ created or destroyed
Never
Mass is ____ created or destroyed
Never
Energy is ___ turned into mass in ecosystems
Never
Mass is ___ turned into energy in ecosystems
Never
Species are assigned to tropic levels based on
Their main source of nutrition and energy
Primary producers synthesize organic molecules via the process of
Photosynthesis
Herbivores
Plants and primary producers
Primary consumers
Carnivores that eat herbivores
Secondary consumers
Carnivores that eat carnivores
Tertiary consumers
Organisms that get their energy from non living organic matter are
Detritivores
The amount of light energy converted to chemical energy in the form of organic compounds by autotrophs durning a given time period
Primary production
= to gross primary production - the energy used by the primary producers for their autotrophic respiration
Net primary production (npp)
Why is npp typically the key measurement of production?
It represents the storage of chemical emergent that will be available to consumers in the ecosystem
What units are used to express npp?
Energy per unit area per unit time
Biomass added per unit area per unit time
Where do we find especially high npp?
Estuaries and coral reefs
How do we know if a nutrient is a limiting nutrient?
If you add more the growth will increase if limiting
Plants would grow more if they had more of this nutrient
Limiting nutrient
Eutrophication occurs when ___ is added to lakes, causing growth in ___ which ultimately reduces ___ concentrations
Nutrients
Algae
O2
As big as a lake or forest or as small as under a log
Ecosystem
Globally, terrestrial npp is mainly controlled by ____ and ___
Temp
Moisture
On land, the nutrient that most often limits plant growth is
Nitrogen
Often limiting in old, highly weathered soils
Phosphorus
The amount of chemical energy in consumers good that is converted to their own new biomass during a given period
Secondary production
Production efficiency represents the energy in an organisms food that is not used for
Respiration
The % of production transferred from one tropic level to the next
Tropic efficiency
Diagram of a typical pyramid of net production
See chapter notes
Nutrient cycles are called bio geochemical cycles because they involve both
Biotic and abiotic components
Name 4 elements whose biogeochemical cycles include gaseous forms
Carbon
O2
Sulfur
Nitrogen
Name 3 elements whose biogeochemical cycles do not include gaseous forms
Phosphorus
Potassium
Calcium
Water cycle
See chapter notes
Carbon cycle
See chapter notes
Nitrogen cycle
See chapter notes
How does phosphorus originally enter terrestrial ecosystems?
Rock weathering
Decomposition is the fastest in ecosystems that are ____ and ____
Warm and moist
Because of high decomposition rates, these ecosystems ___ levels of accumulated organic matter in the soil and ____ turnover of plant nutrients
Low
Fast
Most natural systems ___ recover from human disturbances but this recovery is typically ____
Can
Slow
3 types of organisms that are typically used in bioremediation
Plants
Fungi
Prokaryotes
What is the limiting nutrient in many alpine ecosystems of the western U.S.?
Nitrogen
Experimenting with different types of management to discover what works best is called
Adaptive management
