Bio 20- Unit A Flashcards

Flashcards about Biology 20 Unit A: Energy and Matter Exchange in the Biosphere.

Ecology

Study of the relationships between living things (organisms) and their non-living surroundings, the environment.

What kind of system is Earth?

Earth is a closed system to matter, which means no matter leaves or enters the biosphere, only energy.

How does energy flow through the biosphere?

Energy only flows in a one way path through the biosphere

What happens to all energy?

Eventually all energy is lost as heat.

Conduction

transfer by direct contact

Radiation

transfer energy via waves

Convection

transfer energy via movement of matter

Albedo

describes the amount of reflected energy

Producers (autotrophs= self-feeders)

Produce their own food from the sun’s energy

Consumers (heterotrophs)

Cannot make their own energy rich food. Must consume other organisms

Chemosynthesis

Some organisms live in light-free environments and use chemosynthesis to produce organic molecules without solar energy

Photosynthesis Energy Source

Energy source is sunlight

Chemosynthesis Energy Source

Energy source is chemical energy in inorganic compounds

Thermodynamic Laws #1

Energy cannot be created or destroyed, just transferred/transformed

Thermodynamic Laws #2

During the transfer, some energy is converted to an unusable form, so energy is lost at each step

Trophic Level

Level that transfers energy and matter

10% Rule

Every time you move up a trophic level in an ecosystem, only 10% of the energy consumed/produced at the previous level is available for use. The rest is lost as waste energy (i.e. heat or eliminated as waste)

What eats plants and other producers

Primary consumers (Herbivores)

What eats other animals, mainly herbivores

Secondary consumers (Carnivores)

What eats other carnivores

Tertiary consumers (Carnivores)

Decomposers

Return organic and inorganic matter to soil, air, and water

Scavenger

Organism that feeds on dead organisms or the wastes of organisms

Food chain

Trophic levels organized into linear pathways through which food/energy is transferred

Food webs

Model of food/energy transfer in an ecosystem that shows the interconnections among food chains

Trophic Cascade

Triggered by the addition or removal of a top predator in an ecosystem

Pyramid of Numbers

Number of individuals at each trophic level for a given area at a given time

Inverted Pyramid of Numbers

In some ecosystems, a smaller number of large organisms at a lower trophic level support a larger number of small organisms at higher trophic levels.

Pyramid of Biomass

Shows the total dry mass of all the individuals at each trophic level for a given area at a given time

Pyramid of Energy

Shows the energy contained at each trophic level for a given area at a given time.

Biomagnification

An increase in concentration of a chemical higher in trophic levels

Biogeochemical Cycle

Cycle of transferring nutrients from the environment, to an organism, and back to the environment

Carbon Sink

Trees are a carbon sink (lots of carbon is released during forest fires and decomposition)

Nitrogen fixation

convert N2 NO3-  NH4+

Ammonification

decomposers break down organic matter NH4+  NO2-  NO3-

Denitrification

bacteria convert NO3-  NO2- N2 (anaerobic)

Phosphorus

Don't cycle through the atmosphere, only cycle through soil and water

Eutrophication

Excess phosphates lots of algae algae dies  decomposers use up oxygen to break

Cohesion

the attraction of water molecules to each other= surface tension.

Adhesion

is the attraction of water molecules to molecules of other substances (i.e. the inner surface of a glass tube)

Homeostasis

maintaining equilibrium

Gaia Hypothesis

states that the biosphere acts like an organism that regulates itself within certain environmental limits

Evidence of Oxygen

Banded iron formations within the stromatolites