Exam Four: Terms Flashcards
What is a biosphere?
includes all the organisms on Earth, together with the environments in which they live.
What is a lithosphere?
terrestrial environments such as soil, rocks, and life
What is a atmosphere?
life primarily in lower atmosphere
What is a hydrosphere?
aquatic environments such as oceans, lakes, and
What is a biome?
categorized based on the unique climatic and ecological features of each such region
What are the types of biomes?
tundra, aquatic
What is the artic tundra biome?
covers 1/4 earths land surface
What is the alpine tundra?
covers high-altitude areas of similar climate
What are the tundra plants?
dominated by low-growing flowering plants such as grasses, sedges, moss, and lichens.
What are tundra animals?
low diversity. mostly smaller, mostly visitors
What is the intertidal zone?
difficult areas to live in due to problems of high tide and low tide and pounding waves.
What is the population ecology?
is the study of populations in relation to the environment to understand. Variations in population size, environmental influences on population density, affects of age structure on population growth
What is a population?
group of individuals of a species that live in a specific location, and breed with members of that population
What is the fertility rate?
2.8
What is the replacement-level fertility?
when a population will eventually stabilize if parents have just the number of children to replace themselves.
What is a autotroph?
producers that use energy from external sources such as the sun to produce their own food.
What is a heterotroph?
extracting energy from food created by the producers. they are decomposers, and consumers
What is a ecosystem?
a small unit of the environment with more or less fixed boundaries
What is a consumer?
heterotroph
What is a decomposer?
an organism that breaks down dead tissues into simple chemical components, thereby returning nutrients to the physical environment.
What is net primary productivity?
the amount of energy acquired through photosynthesis that is available for growth and reproduction.
What is secondary productivity?
the rate of new biomass production by consumers and is highest in ecosystems with high net primary productivity
What is bioaccumulation?
chemical can accumulate in an organism at concentrations higher than in the surrounding abiotic environment
What is biomagnification?
increase in tissue concentrations of a chemical as organic matter is passed to higher trophic levels in a food chain
What is “background rate” extinction?
extinction rates of 100-1,000 higher than background
