Ecosystem Services and Soil Properties

Flashcards covering key concepts from a lecture on ecosystem services, soil composition, texture, and structure.

What are provisioning ecosystem services?

Resources like water, goods, and lumber.

What are regulating ecosystem services?

Purification, decomposition, and acting as a sink for atmospheric gases.

What are supporting ecosystem services?

Nutrient cycling, seed dispersal, and biomass production.

What are cultural and informational ecosystem services?

Archaeological significance, recreation, and spiritual uplift.

What factors in soil support plant growth?

Temperature, nutrient elements, water, and air.

What macronutrients do plants obtain primarily from air and water?

Carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen.

What macronutrients do plants obtain primarily from soil solids?

Calcium, magnesium , nitrogen, potassium, and sodium.

Name some trace metals

Copper, cobalt and nickel.

What are the three main particle sizes that determine soil texture?

Sand, silt, and clay

What soil properties are determined by physical characteristics?

Shear strength, bearing strength, and compressibility.

What is the Critical Zone in soil science?

The zone where active cycles and pedoterbation occur, moving materials.

What are the major soil horizons?

O, A, B, C, and bedrock.

What does pedology study?

Soils as natural bodies.

What do edaphologists study?

Living organisms' relationship with soil as a habitat.

What is parent material in soil formation?

The unconsolidated and weathered mineral or organic matter from which the solum develops.

What are A and O horizons typically referred to as?

Topsoil, organically rich and readily enhanced.

What is the function of the subsoil (B horizon)?

Used to stabilize the topsoil layer and prevent erosion.

What are the primary characteristics of soil texture?

Particle size and pore space.

What is the ideal composition of soil solids for plant growth?

45% mineral, 20-30% water, and 5% organic matter.

Give examples of primary minerals in soil.

Quartz, mica, and feldspar.

What constitutes organic matter in soil?

Carbonaceous substances from past organisms.

What roles do humus and clay play in soil?

Act as high-contact bridges between larger soil particles and hold nutrient ions and water extremely well.

How are soil layers and conditions affected?

Impacted by the environment (temperature, chemical/biochemical weathering, degradation) and important for structural integrity.

What do soil texture and structure refer to?

Size of soil particles and how they're aggregated together.

What characteristics are evaluated using Munsell Color Charts?

Degree of darkness, yellowness, and redness.

Describe the characteristics of sandy soil.

Gritty, large pores, good aeration, doesn't hold nutrients, and has low specific surface area.

Describe the characteristics of silty soil

Smooth, less plasticity.

Describe the characteristics of clay soil.

Sticky, high plasticity, acts as a colloid, and has slow aeration and water flow.

What is illuviation?

The process by which mineral weathering changes soil texture.

What factors change soil texture?

Erosion, subsequent deposition, and addition of mineral soils.

Give examples of stabilizers in mineral soil aggregation.

Fungal hyphae and roots.

What are the different shapes of peds?

Spheroidal, plate-like, prism-like, and block-like.

What are examples of physical-chemical processes

Swelling and shrinking of clay, flocculation of clay, cementation in lower layers, and other processes like burrowing and molding by soil animals.