Paper 2-green Stuff Flashcards
What is an ecosystem?
The interaction of a community of living organisms and the non living (abiotic) parts of their enviroment
What is a biotic factor?
Living components that affect the organisms
E.g disease
What is an abiotic factor?
Non living components that affect the organisms living there
(E.g rainfall)
What is a producer?
- organisms that produce organic molecules
- usually a green plant
What is a consumer?
Organisms that feed of the organic matter made by plants
E.g animals
Whar is a decomposer?
Organisms that break down dead or undigested material(they are important in the nutrient cycle)
-e.g fungi
What is a trophic level?
It is a feeder level
E.g
Primary producer
Primary consumer
Secondary consumer
Tertiary consumer
What is habitat?
A place where an organism lives
What is a community
Made up of all the living organisms within a habitat
What are populations?
Group of organisms of the same species living in the same place at the same time
What is a species?
A group of organisms with similar characteristics that can potentially inbreed and produce fertile offspring
What is the point of food chains and webs?
Ways to show the relationship between the numbers of a community in an ecosystem
What do the arrows in foodchains represent?
The direction of energy flow
What are predators?
Consumers that eat other animals
What can feeding relationships within a community be represented by?
Food chains
The numbers of predators and prey increase in cycles:
-this is only true in _____________
a stable community
Describe predator prey relationships
As the number of prey rises, the number of predators rise
This causes more predators who eat the prey and therefore the population of the prey decreases
The decreased number of prey means the predators have to fight for food which causes a decrease in the number of predators(cycle repeats)
What is material cycling?
The process of the transfer of a substance (such as carbon, oxygen or water)
You know the carbon cycle well from geography, but what are the three main process involved in it?
-photosythesis(turns carbon dioxide and water into glucose and oxygen)
Respiration(turns glucose and oxygen into carbon dioxide and water
Combustion(burning of fossil fuels, releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere
What do microorganisms do?
Decompose dead plants, dead animals and waste
Describe the water cycle?
Evaporation-(sun heats the Earth’s surface and water is turned from a liquid into water vapour forming warm moist air)
Condensation(cool air rises and turns back into liquid)
Precipitation(water)
Percolation(water tricklestgrough gaps in soil and rocks
(Transpiration can also happen after this or evaporation again)
What is biodiversity?
Measure of all the variety of all the different species of organisms on Earth or within an Ecosystem
In general high biodiversity ensures _________
The stability of ecosystems
Give two reasons why biodiversity is important?
- It reduces the dependence of one species for another(food
- if biodiversity is low and there are few species in an ecosystem,if one species is removed it can have a dramtic effect
Give two ways that humanity links to biodiversity?
- humans reduce the amount of space avaliable for other animals and plants by building,quarring, farming and dumping waste
- the future of humanity relies on us maintaining a good level of biodiversity
How can pollution occur on land?(3 ways)
- can occur from toxic chemicals (such as pesticides and herbicides, which may also be washed from land to water
- toxic chemcials within landfill sites leak into the soil
- land polluted as a side effect of farming
How can water pollution occur?
Pollution can occur in water from sewage,fertiliers or toxic chemicals
(Minerals from fertilisers are easily washed into local streams)
-untreated sewage can cause high nitrate levels in water
How can air pollution occur?
-from smoke and acid gases(can be caused by waste and chemical materials not being properly handled
What does air pollution do?
Kills plants and animals(this reduces biodiversity)
How is acid rain formed?
Burning fossil fuels form acid gase, carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere
- fossil fuels contain sulfer impurities which react with oxygen when they burn to form sulfer dioxide
- dissolved rainwater than reacts with oxygen in the air to form sulfuirc acid
What are the effects of acid rain?
- kill flowers and soaks into soil and destroys roots
- acid rain falling into lakes and rivers make the water acidic-this kills plants and animals which REDUCES BIODIVERSITY
Levels of what are increasing due to global warming?
-methane and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere
What are two biological consequences of climate change?
- loss of habitats when low lying areas are flooded by rising sea levels
- changes in distriubtion patterns of species in areas where temperature or rainfall has changed(changes the migration of animals)
What is combustion?
The process of burning something
What does increased human population cause(2things)?
- more resources being used
- more waste being produced
What are four ways of maintaining biodiverity?
- breeding programmes for endangered species
- protection and regeneration of rare habitats
- reintroduction of field margins and hedgerows
- reduction of deforestation and carbon dioxide emissions
- recycling resources
What is interdependence?
The reliance of one organims on another to survive
What does low biodiversity do?
Increases the dependence of one organims on another
What does high biodiversity do?
Decreases the dependence of one organims on another(makes ecosytems stable)
Breeding programme eg
Captive or artificial programmes in zoos
Managing habitats e.g
Regenerating habitats that are damaged
Field margins and hedgerows e.g
Replanting hedgerows
What three ways can humans limit resource use?
- reduce
- recycle
- reuse
