Fifth review Flashcards
Emergent Trees
The tallest trees are the emergents, towering as much as 200 feet above the forest floor with trunks that measure up to 16 feet around. Most of these trees are broad-leaved, hardwood evergreens. Sunlight is plentiful up here.
Greenbelts
An area of open land around a city, on which building is restricted.
Teratogens
An agent or factor that causes malformation of an embryo.
Urban Heat Island Effect
An urban area or metropolitan area that is significantly warmer than its surrounding rural areas due to human activities. … The main cause of the urban heat island effect is from the modification of land surfaces.
Carcinogens
A substance capable of causing cancer in living tissue.
Primary Forest
Forests of native tree species, where there are no clearly visible indications of human activities and the ecological processes are not significantly disturbed.
Secondary Forest
Forests regenerate on native forests, which have been cleared by natural or man made causes, such as agriculture or ranching.
Neurotoxins
Toxins that are poisonous or destructive to nerve tissue.
Milankovitch Cycle
The Earth’s eccentricity, Eccentricity is, simply, the shape of the Earth’s orbit around the Sun. This constantly fluctuating, orbital shape ranges between more and less elliptical (0 to 5% ellipticity) on a cycle of about 100,000 years.
Endocrine Disruptors
Chemicals that can interfere with endocrine (or hormone) systems at certain doses. These disruptions can cause cancerous tumors, birth defects, and other developmental disorders.
Acute Exposure
A single exposure (not lasting longer than a day) to a substance(s) that causes severe harm, or even death.
Chronic Exposure
A state of continuous or recurring contact with toxic substances or radioactive materials over a long period of time (3 months or more).
Adaptive Forest Management
A process of gathering and using scientific information to evaluate and improve forest management decisions and practices on the ground.
Proxy Indicators
Indirect measure or sign that approximates or represents a phenomenon in the absence of a direct measure or sign.
I.P.C.C.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is a scientific and intergovernmental body under the auspices of the United Nations,set up at the request of member governments, dedicated to the task of providing the world with an objective, scientific view of climate change and its political and economic impacts.
Bioaccumulation
The accumulation of substances, such as pesticides, or other chemicals in an organism.
Positive Feedback Loop
Enhance or amplify changes; this tends to move a system away from its equilibrium state and make it more unstable.
Negative Feedback Loop
Tend to dampen or buffer changes; this tends to hold a system to some equilibrium state making it more stable.
Biosphere Reserves
An ecosystem with plants and animals of unusual scientific and natural interest.
Urbanization
The process of making an area more urban.
Urban Sprawl
The uncontrolled expansion of urban areas.
LD50
The amount of an ingested substance that kills 50 percent of a test sample. It is expressed in mg/kg, or milligrams of substance per kilogram of body weight. Common name. Toxin. Lethal doses.
Mutagens
An agent, such as radiation or a chemical substance, that causes genetic mutation.
Dose-Response Analysis
Are mathematical formula relating dose D to effect Y(D) and risk R(D), which itself is a function of the effect. The most common models are provided in explicit form.
Synergistic Effects
An effect arising between two or more agents, entities, factors, or substances that produces an effect greater than the sum of their individual effects.
