le ecology

What is the study of the interactions of living organisms with one another and with their physical environment?

Ecology

What are all the animals, plants, fungi, and microorganisms that live together in a forest?

Community

What is the place where a community lives. Its soil, and the water flowing through it are key components?

Habitat

What is a largely self-sustaining collection of organisms and their physical environment?

Ecosystem

What is the continual flow of light energy that is captured and transformed into chemical energy and used to make organic molecules such as carbohydrates, proteins, and fats?

Photosynthesis

What are organisms which produce their own energy-storing molecules by carrying out photosynthesis. The bottom trophic level?

Producers

What are organisms that obtain their energy-storing molecules by consuming plants or other animals?

Consumers

What is the level composed of those organisms within an ecosystem whose source of energy is the same number of consumption 'steps' away from the sun?

Trophic level

What is the path of food energy between trophic levels is a linear progression?

Foodchain

What is the complicated path of energy flow between several trophic levels?

Foodweb

What are animals that eat plants? They are primary consumers of ecosystems and are the second trophic level.

Herbivores

What are animals who are meat eaters? They are second consumers and are the third trophic level.

Carnivores

What are animals that eat both animals and plants?

Omnivores

What are animals that consume other carnivores. The fourth trophic level.

Tertiary consumers

What are organisms that eat dead organisms?

Detritivores

What are organisms that break down organic substances?

Decomposers

What is the total amount of light energy converted by photosynthetic organisms into organic compounds in a given area per unit of time?

Primary productivity

What is the total amount of energy fixed by photosynthesis per unit of time, minus that which is expended by photosynthetic organisms?

Net primary productivity

What is total weight of all ecosystem organisms?

Biomass

How much energy flows up the pyramid. What does it start with? What is at the top?

10% of the energy flows up the pyramid.

The most energy starts with producers.

The top is tertiary consumers.

What is the constant reuse of physical components in ecosystems?

Cycling

What are chemicals that cycle between living and nonliving?

Biogeochemical cycle

What is the process of liquid water to water vapor?

Evaporation

What is the process of evaporation of water from leaf surfaces?

Transpiration

What is the most important water reservoir? Occurs in underground layers of rock called aquifers

Groundwater

What is process by which water that falls from the atmosphere as rain, snow, sleet, or hail?

Precipitation

What is the process by which water cools and turns from vapor to liquid?

Condensation

What is the process by which water transforms from solid into gas without becoming a liquid?

Sublimation

What is the process by which water transforms from gas into solid without becoming a liquid?

Deposition

What is the cycle where carbon from the atmosphere and from water is fixed by photosynthetic organisms and returned through respiration, combustion, and erosion?

Carbon cycle

What is the process of stripping away carbon atoms and combining it with oxygen to form CO2 to extract energy from food molecules?

Respiration

What is the process by which carbon returns to the atmosphere after being trapped in fossil fields?

Combustion

What is the process by which carbon is extracted from the water by marine organisms, using it to build their shells, then the shells erode and return the carbon?

Erosion

What is the cycle where bacteria convert atmospheric nitrogen into forms that can be used for biological processes?

Nitrogen cycle

What is the process by which nitrogen gas is converted into fixed nitrogen, like ammonia?

Nitrogen fixation

What is a principal component of protein, and the atmosphere?

Nitrogen

What is the essential element in all living organisms, and a key part of both ATP and DNA?

Phosphorus

What is the element essential for life, found in all organic compounds?

Carbon

What is rapid, uncontrolled algal growth caused by excessive nutrients in an aquatic ecosystem?

Eutrophication

What is the chemical that cycles through the atmosphere?Essential for life and found in proteins. It can harm an ecosystem when lage amounts of it are pumped into the atmosphere through coal-burning power plants.

Sulfur

What is the effect where the moisture-holding capacity of air decreases and increases when a moving body of air encounters a mountain, causing rain on one side and a desert on the other?

Rain shadow effect

What is the warming of Pacific Ocean waters that disrupts global weather patterns?

El Nino

What is the cooling of Pacific Ocean waters that causes widespread global effects on weather?

La Nina

What is the zone which is exposed to the air whenever the tides recede? Part of this region lies within Shallow Waters.

Intertidal region

What are partly enclosed bodies of water where salinity is between seawater and freshwater?

Estuaries

What are areas in which seawater circulates through porous rock surrounding fissures where molten material from beneath the earth's crust comes close to the surface?

Hydrothermal vent systems

What is the process by which water is most dense, and sinks beneath water that is either warmer or cooler?

Thermal stratification

What is the process by which surface water is warmed in the spring and sinks below cooler water, bringing the cooler water up?

Spring overturn

What is the process by which colder layers of water at the bottom and warmer layers of water at the top switch positions in the Fall?

Fall overturn

What are lakes that have an abundant supply of minerals and organic matter?

Eutrophic lakes

What are lakes where organic matter and nutrients are relatively scarce?

Oligotrophic lakes

What is the terrestrial ecosystem that occurs over a broad area, characterized by a particular climate and a defined group of organisms?

Biome

What are rain forests which experience over 250cm of rain, richest ecosystems on earth, containing at least half of the earth's species of terrestrial plants and animals?

Lush Tropical Rain Forests

What are dry tropical grasslands that are open, have 75-125cm of rainfall?

Savannas

What are dry places where less than 25cm of rain falls in a year?

Deserts

What are temperate regions that are very suitable for agriculture?

Grasslands

What are temperate grasslands that are often populated by herds of grazing mammals?

Prairies

What are forests that have mild climates, and plentiful rains?

Deciduous forests

What are trees that drops leaves in the winter?

Deciduous tree

Whar are trees with leaves like needles that are kept all year long?

Coniferous trees

What biome has harsh winters, large mammals, many coniferous trees, and a limited amount of precipitation?

Taiga

What biome has open, windswept, often boggy, have little rain or snow falls?

Tundra

What is a layer of boggy ground caused by rainfall in the arctic summer?

Permafrost

What biome consists of evergreen that form communities in regions with a Mediterranean, dry summer climate?

Chapparal

What receives almost no precipitation, sun barely rises and life is largely limited to the coasts?

Polar ice caps

What occurs in the tropics and semitropics where local climates are drier? Rainfall is typically very seasonal.

Tropical monsoon forests

What are regions with less rain than monsoon forests but more rain than savannass? Vegetation is dominated by bushes and trees.

Semidesert

What are regions where winters are cold, and there is a strong seasonal dry period?

Temperate evergreen forests

What are groups of individuals of a species that live together and influence each other's survival?

Populations

What are the number of individuals in a population?

Population size

What is the number of individuals that occur in a unit area?

Population density

What is the scatter of individual organisms within the population range?

Population dispersion

What is the increase in the number of individuals in a population over time?

Population growth

What is the rate at which a population grows without limit?

Biotic potential

What is the maximum number of individuals that an area can support?

Carrying capacity

What is a double curve that resembles the letter S?

Sigmoid growth curve

What are effects that are independent of the size of a population and act to regulate its growth? (ex: weather, physical disruptions)

Density-independent effects

What are effects that are dependent on the size of the population and act to regulate its growth?

Density-dependent effects

What are traits favoring high reproduction rates and rapid population growth in unstable environments?

R-selected adaptations

What are traits favoring reproduction near the carrying capacity of the environment?

K-selected adaptations

What is the statistical study of populations?

Demography

What is a group of individuals of the same age within a population?

Cohort

What is the number of offspring produced in a standard time?

Fecundity

What is the number of individuals that die in that period?

Mortality

What is the proportion of males and females in a population

Sex ratio

What is the proportion of individuals in different age categories?

Age distribution

What is defined as the percentage of an original population that survives to a given age, have three types (Type I = mortality rates slowly rises with age) (Type III - mortality rates severely rises with age)?

Survivorship curve

What is an organism's particular biological role?

Niche

What is the struggle of two organisms to use the same resource when there is not enough of the resource to satisfy both?

Competition

What are the interactions between individuals of DIFFERENT species when they both require the same scarce resource?

Interspecific competition

What are the interactions between individuals of a SINGLE species when they both require the same scarce resource?

Intraspecific Competition

What is the entire niche that an organism is theoretically capable of using?

Fundamental niche

What is the actual niche the organism is able to occupy in the presence of competitors?

Realized niche

When two species are able to coexist on a long-term basis, their niches differ in some way, and one species outcompetes the other and the extinction of the second is inevitable. What principle is this defined as?

Competitive exclusion

What is the dividing up of resources to create two realized niches between species?

Resource partitioning

What are species that avoid competition by living in different portions of the same habitat, or by using different food or other resources?

Sympatric species

What are species that use the same habitat locations and food resources because of no competition but do not live in the same geographical area?

Allopatric species

When a pair of species occupy the same habitat, they tend to exhibit greater differences in morphology and behavior than allopatric species. What process is this defined as?

Character displacement