Ecology and the enviroment Flashcards
What’s a habitat?
A place where organisms live
What’s a population?
All the organisms of one species in a habitat
What’s a community?
All the different species in a habitat
What’s an eco-system?
All the organisms living in a particular area, and the non living conditions
How to use a quadrat?
Place a 1M square quadrat at a random point
Count all organisms in the quadrat
Multiply to get an estimate for the total area
How to make a quadrat more accurate?
Use a bigger quadrat
What’s a transect?
When quadrats are out along a line
What do food chains show?
What’s eaten by what in a food chain
What’s a producer?
Make their own food from the sun, and eaten by primary consumers
What eat producers?
Primary consumers
What eat Primary consumers?
Secondary consumers
What eats the secondary consumer?
Tertiary consumer
What’s each level in the food web called?
A trophic level
How would you show trophic levels?
Pyramid of numbers, (may not always be a pyramid)
What’s a pyramid of biomass?
The mass of living material at that stage of the food chain (always look like a pyramid)
What do pyramids of energy transfer show?
The energy transferred through each trophic level, always pyramid shaped
How is energy transferred through the trophic levels?
Goes through the levels, but each time a little bit of energy is lost via various manners
What do food webs shows?
How food chains are linked, and if you took at one species how it would effect the others
What’s the water cycle?
Heat from sun makes water evaporate
Water condenses to form clouds
Water falls as precipitation
Cycle restarts
What’s the carbon cycle?
Co2 goes into green plants for respiration
Animals eat plants so Carbon compounds stay in them
Animals and plants release CO2 in respiration
When plants and animals die, decomposers release CO2
Products are also burned releasing CO2 into air
What percent of Nitrogen is in the air?
78%
What’s the Nitrogen cycle?
Plants obtain Nitrogen from the soil and animals obtain it from plants
What’s nitrogen fixation?
Turning Nitrogen into Nitrogen compounds which plants can use from the soil
How does Nitrogen fixation happen?
Lightning
Nitrogen-fixing bacteria (4 types)
What are decomposers?
Break down proteins and urea, and turn them into Ammonia
What’s Nitrifying bacteria?
Turns Ammonia into Nitrates
What’s Nitrogen fixing bacteria?
Turns atmospheric Nitrogen into Nitrogen compounds
What’s denitrifying bacteria?
Turns nitrates back into atmospheric nitrogen
How is Carbon Monoxide made?
When fossil fuels are burnt without enough oxygen
Why’s carbon monoxide poisonous?
Combines with red blood cells, stopping them carrying oxygen
Where is carbon monoxide mainly released from, and how’s it solved?
Car emissions, catalytic converters turn carbon monoxide into CO2
How is acid rain caused by Sulphur Dioxide?
When the gas mixes with rainclouds it forms sulphuric acid, falling as acid rain
Main causes for this are Internal combustion engines
What does acid rain do?
Ruin a lake’s eco-system
Kills trees
What are the greenhouse gases?
Water vapour, Co2 and Methane
What’s global warming?
Greenhouses gasses are trapping heat inside the atmosphere creating climate change as the world heats up
What’s climate change causing?
Ice caps melting
Flooding
Change in crop growth
How does Human activity produce a lot of CO2?
Burning fossil fuels
Cutting down trees which take in CO2
How does Human activity produce a lot of Methane?
Rice growing
Cattle Rearing
How does Human activity produce a lot of Nitrous oxide?
Released from soils due to fertiliser
Vehicle engines
How does Human activity produce a lot of CFCs?
Aerosols. old fridges, they destroy the ozone layer
How do fertilisers lead to Eutrophication?
Nitrates and Phosphates from fertilisers end up in water source
This causing algae to grow blocking out sunlight, so other plants can’t photosynthesise
With more food, there are more micro-organisms who use up all the oxygen in the water causing others to die
This is Eutrophication
What’s a different way that causes Eutrophication?
Sewage
What’s leaching?
When trees are chopped and taken away, they can’t release there nutrients back into the soil making it infertile
What’s soil erosion?
Tree roots hold soil together, when taken away the nutrients can be washed away
How does deforestation disturb the water cycle?
When taken away water reaches everything faster possibly causing flooding
Also increases more transpiration making local climate drier
How does deforestation disturb the balance of Co2 and oxygen?
More Co2 released when trees are burnt
Less trees means less oxygen produced
