Unit 1-The Living World: Ecosystems Vocab Flashcards
Adaptations
- (climate change)-the pursuit of strategies to protect ourselves from the impacts of climate change.
- (evolution)-the process by which traits that lead to increase productive success in a given environment evolve in a population through natural selection.
Autotrophs
(primary producer)-an organism that can use the energy from sunlight to produce its own food. Includes screen plants, algae, and cyanobacteria.
Biogeochemical Cycle
The comprehensive set of cyclical pathways by which a given nutrient moves through the environment.
Biome
A major regional complex of similar plant communities; a large ecological unit defined by its dominant plant type and vegetation structure.
Boreal Forest
A biome of northern coniferous force that stretches in a broad ban across much of Canada, Alaska, Russia, and Scandinavia. Also known as taiga, boreal forest consists of a limited number of species of Evergreen trees, such as black spruce, that dominate large regions of forest interspersed with occasional bogs and lakes.
Carnivores
An organism that consumes animals.
Chapparal
A biome consisting mostly of densely thicketed evergreen shrubs occurring in limited small patches. It’s “Mediterranean” climate of mild, wet Winters and warm, dry summers is induced by oceanic influences. In addition to ringing the Mediterranean Sea, chapparal occurs along the coast of California, Chile and Southern Australia.
Climatographs
A visual representation of a region’s average monthly temperature and precipitation. Also known as a climate diagram.
Commensalism
An association between two organisms in which one benefits and the other derives neither benefit nor harm.
Competition
A relationship in which multiple organisms seek the same limited resource.
Competitive Exclusion
An outcome of interspecific competition in which one species excludes another species from resource use entirely.
Decomposer
An organism, such as a fungus or bacterium, that breaks down leaf litter and other non-living matter into simple constituents that can be taken up and used by plants.
Denitrifying Bacteria
Bacteria that convert the nitrates in soil or water into gaseous nitrogen and release it back into the atmosphere.
Desert
The driest biome on Earth, with annual precipitation of less than 25 cm. Because deserts have relatively little vegetation to insulate them from temperature extremes, sunlight readily heats them in the daytime, but daytime heat is quickly lost at night, so temperatures vary widely from day to night and in different seasons.
Detritivores
An organism, such as a millipede or soil insect, that scavenges the waste products or dead bodies of other community members.
Eutrophication
The process of nutrient enrichment, increased production of organic matter, and subsequent ecosystem degradation in a water body.
Feedback Loop
A circular process in which a system’s output serves as input to that same system.
Flux
The movement of nutrients among pools or reservoirs in a nutrient cycle.
Food Chain
A linear series of feeding relationships. As organisms feed on one another, energy is transferred from lower to higher trophic levels.
Fundamental Niche
A full niche(the functional role of a species in a community) of species.
Herbivores
An organism that consumes plants.
Interspecific Competition
Competition that takes place among members of two or more different species.
Intraspecific Competition
Competition that takes place among members of the same species.
Keystone Species
A species that has an especially far-reaching effect on a community.
Mutualism
A relationship in which all participating organisms benefit from their interaction.
Net Primary Productivity
The rate at which net primary production is produced.
Nitrification
The conversion by bacteria of ammonium ions (NH4+) first into nitrite ions(NO2-) and then into nitrate ions (NO3-).
Nitrogen Fixation
The process by which inert nitrogen gas combines with hydrogen to form ammonium ions(NH4+), which are chemically and biologically active and can be taken up by plants.
Nitrogen-Fixing Bacteria
Bacteria that live independently in the soil or water, or those that form mutualistic relationships with many types of plants and provide nutrients to plants by converting gaseous nitrogen to a usable form.
Nutrient Cycle
The comprehensive set of cyclical pathways by which a given nutrient moves through the environment.
Omnivores
An organism that consumes both plants and animals.
Pathogens
A parasite that causes disease in its host.
Parasitism
The practice of living as a parasite in or on another organism.
Permafrost
In tundra, underground soil that remains more or less permanently frozen.
Phytoplankton
Microscopic photosynthetic algae, protists, and cyanobacteria that drift near the surface of water bodies and generally form the first tropic level in an aquatic food chain.
Pool
A location in which nutrients in a biogeochemical cycle remain for a period of time before moving to another pool. Can be living or nonliving entities. Synonymous with reservoir.
Predation
The process in which one species (the predator) hunts, tracks, captures, and ultimately kills its prey.
Prey
An organism that is killed and consumed by a predator.
Primary Consumers
An organism that consumes producers and feeds at the second tropic level.
Producers (autotroph)
An organism that uses energy from sunlight to produce its own food. Includes green plants, algae, and cyanobacteria.
Productivity
The rate at which plants convert solar energy (sunlight) to biomass. Ecosystems whose plants convert solar energy to biomass rapidly are said to have high productivity.
Realized Niche
The portion of the fundamental niche that is fully realized (used) by a species.
Reservoir
- An artificial water body behind a dam that stores water for human use.
- See pool.
Residence Time
- In a biogeochemical cycle, the amount of time a nutrient remains in a given pool or reservoir before moving to another.
- In the atmosphere, the amount of time a gas molecule or a pollutant remains aloft.
Resource Partitioning
The process by which species adapt to competition by evolving to use sightly different resources, or to use their shared resources in different ways, thus minimizing interference with one another.
Savanna
A biome characterized by a grassland interspersed with clusters of acacias and other trees. Savanna is found across parts of Africa (where it was the ancestral home of our species), South America, Australia, India, and other dry regions.
Secondary Consumers
An organism that consumes primary consumers and feeds at the third trophic level.
Sink
In a nutrient cycle, a pool that accepts more nutrients than it releases.
Source
In a nutrient cycle, a pool that releases more nutrients than it accepts.
Symbiosis
A relationship between different species of organisms that live in close physical proximity. People most often use the term “symbiosis” when referring to a mutualism, but symbiotic relationships can be either parasitic or mutualistic.
Taiga
A biome of northern coniferous forest that stretches in a broad band across much of Canada, Alaska, Russia, and Scandinavia. Also known as boreal forest, taiga consist of a limited number of species of Evergreen trees, such as black spruce, that dominate large regions of forest interspersed with occasional blogs and lakes.
Temperate Deciduous Forest
A biome consisting of midlatitude forests characterized by broad-leafed trees that lose their leaves each fall and remain dormant during the winter. These forests occur in areas where precipitation is spread relatively evenly throughout the year: much of Europe, eastern China, and eastern North America.
Temperate Grasslands
A biome whose vegetation is dominated by grasses and features more extreme temperature differences between winter and summer and less precipitation than temperate deciduous forests. Also known as steppe, prairie.
Temperate Rainforest
A biome consisting of tall coniferous trees, cooler and less species-rich than tropical rainforest and milder and wetter than temperate deciduous forest.
Tertiary Consumers
An organism that consumes secondary consumers and feeds at the fourth tropic level.
Trophic Cascade
A series of changes in the population sizes of organisms at different trophic levels in a food chain, occurring when predators at high trophic levels indirectly promote populations of organisms at low trophic levels by keeping species at intermediate trophic levels in check. Trophic cascades may become apparent when a top predator is eliminated from a system.
Trophic Levels
Rank in the feeding hierarchy of a food chain. Organisms at higher trophic levels consume those at lower trophic levels.
Tropical Deciduous Forest
A biome that consists of deciduous trees and occurs at tropical and subtropical latitudes where wet and dry seasons each span about half a year. Widespread in India, Africa, South America, and northern Australia. Also known as tropical dry forest.
Tropical Dry Forest
A biome that consists of deciduous trees and occurs at tropical and subtropical latitudes where wet and dry seasons each span about half the year. Widespread in India, Africa, South America, and northern Australia also known as tropical deciduous forest.
Tropical Rainforest
A biome characterized by year-round rain and uniformly warm temperatures. Found in Central America, South America, Southeast Asia, west Africa, and other tropical regions. Tropical rainforests have dark, damp interiors; lavish vegetation; and highly diverse biotic communities.
Tundra
A biome that is nearly as dry as desert but is located at the very high latitudes along the northern edges of Russia, Canada, and Scandinavia. Extremely cold winters with little daylight and moderately cool summers with lengthy days characterized this landscape of lichens and slow, scrubby vegetation.
Zooplankton
Tiny aquatic animals that feed on phytoplankton and generally comprise the second trophic level in an aquatic food chain.
Predator
An organism that hunts, captures, kills, and consumes individuals of another species, the prey.
Food Web
A visual representation of a feeding interactions within an ecological community that shows an array of relationships between organisms at different trophic levels.
