AP Environmental Science Exam Review Vocabulary

Vocabulary flashcards for AP Environmental Science exam review, covering key terms and concepts from the provided lecture notes.

Concept Explanation (Science Practice 1)

Focuses on explaining environmental science concepts, making up 13-20% of the AP exam.

Visual Representation (Science Practice 2)

Involves understanding diagrams, which are important for the AP exam.

Scientific Experiments (Science Practice 4)

Covers experimental design and analysis, accounting for 10-14% of the AP exam.

Data Analysis (Science Practice 5)

Focuses on analyzing data, including diagrams, and makes up 6-10% of the AP exam.

Mathematical (Science Practice 6)

Involves mathematical calculations, accounting for 20% of the AP exam content.

Environmental Solutions (Science Practice 7)

Focuses on proposing and evaluating environmental solutions, comprising 26-34% of the AP exam.

Calculate

A task verb requiring you to show your work with units to get to an answer.

Describe

A task verb requiring you to provide relevant characteristics.

Explain

A task verb requiring you to provide information about how or why.

Justify

A task verb requiring evidence to support a claim and explain how the evidence supports the claim.

Dimensional Analysis

A key math skill for converting units using multiplication and division.

Rate of Change

A key math formula (old-new)/time.

Percentage Change (%)

A key math formula. (new-old)/old x 100

Population Change/Growth Rate

A key math formula. (CBR + immigration) - (CDR + emmigration) / 1000 * 100

Rule of 70

A key math skill for determining the doubling time of a population = 70/growth rate.

Symbiosis

A close ecological relationship between two or more organisms of different species that live in direct contact with each other. Can be mutualism, commensalism, or parasitism.

Mutualism

A symbiotic relationship in which both species benefit.

Commensalism

A symbiotic relationship in which one species benefits and the other is neither harmed nor helped.

Parasitism

A symbiotic relationship in which one species benefits and the other is harmed.

Competition

An interaction between organisms or species, in which both the organisms or species are harmed.

Resource Partitioning

When species divide a niche to avoid competition for resources.

Terrestrial Biomes

Large geographic areas characterized by specific climate conditions, animal populations, and plant communities. Examples: Taiga, temperate rainforest, temperate seasonal forest, tropical rainforest, shrubland, temperate grassland, savanna, desert, tundra.

Abiotic Factors (Terrestrial Biomes)

Non-living factors such as water, latitude, geography, altitude, and soil that influence the distribution of terrestrial biomes.

Freshwater Biomes

Aquatic biomes including streams, rivers, ponds, and lakes.

Marine Biomes

Aquatic biomes including oceans, coral reefs, marshlands, and estuaries.

Abiotic Factors (Aquatic Biomes)

Non-living factors such as salinity, depth, turbidity, nutrient availability, and temperature that influence the distribution of aquatic biomes.

Carbon Cycle

The biogeochemical cycle by which carbon is exchanged among the biosphere, pedosphere, geosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere of the Earth.

Nitrogen Cycle

The biogeochemical cycle that describes the transformations of nitrogen and nitrogen-containing compounds in nature.

Nitrogen Fixation

Conversion of atmospheric N2 into a form available for plant uptake, often by soil bacteria or symbiotic relationships with legumes.

Phosphorus Cycle

The biogeochemical cycle that describes the movement of phosphorus through the lithosphere, hydrosphere, and biosphere. The major reservoir is in sedimentary rock with no atmospheric phase.

Hydrologic Cycle

The biogeochemical cycle that describes the continuous movement of water on, above, and below the surface of the Earth. Oceans are the primary reservoir.

Trophic Levels

The hierarchical levels in an ecosystem, consisting of organisms sharing the same function in the food chain and the same nutritional relationship to primary sources of energy.

10% Rule

Approximately 10% of the energy is transferred from one trophic level to the next. The rest is lost as heat, explained by the laws of thermodynamics.

Food Web

A system of interlocking and interdependent food chains.

Feedback Loops

Occur when output of a system feeds back into the system as an input that changes the system. These can be negative or positive.

Biodiversity

The variety of life in the world or in a particular habitat or ecosystem. It can be measured through genetic, species and habitat levels.

Species Richness

The number of different species represented in an ecological community, landscape, or region.

Ecosystem Services

The many and varied benefits that humans freely gain from the natural environment and from properly-functioning ecosystems. (Provisioning, regulating, cultural, and supporting).

Island Biogeography

The study of the factors that affect the species richness and diversification of isolated natural communities.

Ecological Tolerance

The range of conditions, such as temperature, salinity, flow rate, and sunlight that an organism can endure before injury or death results.

Ecological Succession

The process of change in the species structure of an ecological community over time. It can be primary (from abiotic) and secondary (from disturbance).

Pioneer Species

The first species to colonize barren environments or previously biodiverse steady-state ecosystems that have been disrupted, such as by fire or floods.

Keystone Species

A species on which other species in an ecosystem largely depend, such that if it were removed the ecosystem would change drastically.

Indicator Species

A species whose presence, absence, or relative abundance in an environment is indicative of the health and dynamics of that ecosystem.

Generalist Species

Species that can thrive in a wide variety of environmental conditions and make use of a variety of resources.

Specialist Species

Species that thrive only in a narrow range of environmental conditions or has a limited diet.

K-Selected Species

Species that exhibit traits associated with living at densities close to carrying capacity and typically are strong competitors in such crowded, stable environments.

R-Selected Species

Species that emphasize high growth rates, typically exploit less-crowded ecological niches, and produce many offspring, each of which has a relatively low probability of surviving to adulthood.

Survivorship Curves

A graph showing the number or proportion of individuals surviving to each age for a given species or group (e.g. males or females).

Carrying Capacity

The maximum number of individuals of a species that an environment can support.

Age Structure Diagrams

Graphical illustrations that show the distribution of various age groups in a human population (typically of a country or region of the world), which forms the shape of a pyramid when the population is growing.

Total Fertility Rate (TFR)

The average number of children that would be born to a woman over her lifetime if she were to experience the exact current age-specific fertility rates (ASFRs) through her lifetime, and if she were to survive from birth through the end of her reproductive life.

Demographic Transition

The transition from high birth and death rates to lower birth and death rates as a country or region develops from a pre-industrial to an industrialized economic system.

Convergent Plate Boundaries

Areas on Earth where two or more lithospheric plates collide. One plate eventually slides beneath the other, a process known as subduction.

Divergent Plate Boundaries

A linear feature that exists between two tectonic plates that are moving away from each other.

Transform Plate Boundaries

Occur where plates slide past each other, moving horizontally.

Soil Horizons

Distinct layers of soil (O, A, E, B, C) with different physical and chemical properties.

Water Holding Capacity

The amount of water that a given soil can hold.

Porosity

The measure of the void spaces in a material (soil, rock) and is expressed as a fraction or as a percentage.

Permeability

A measure of the ability of a rock or sediment to transmit water or other liquids.

Earth's Atmosphere Layers

Earth surface to Troposphere to Stratosphere to Mesosphere to Thermosphere to Exosphere.

Hadley Cells

A global scale tropical atmospheric circulation that features air rising near the Equator, flowing poleward at 10–15 kilometers above the surface, descending in the subtropics, and then returning equatorward near the surface.

Rainshadow Effect

A patch of land that has been forced to become a desert because mountain ranges blocked all plant-growing, rainy weather.

El Nino

A coupled ocean-atmosphere phenomenon that is associated with a periodic warming in sea surface temperatures across the central and east-central Equatorial Pacific.

La Nina

A coupled ocean-atmosphere phenomenon that is the periodic cooling of sea surface temperatures across the central and east-central Equatorial Pacific.

Tragedy of the Commons

An economic problem in which every individual tries to reap the greatest benefit from a given resource. As demand for the resource overwhelms the supply, every individual who consumes an additional unit directly harms others who can no longer enjoy the benefits.

Clear-Cutting

A forestry practice that harvests all trees in an area leading to erosion, increased soil and stream temps, and flooding.

Sustainable Forestry

Forestry practices buy sustainably harvested wood products that are committed to reforestation and thinning (not clear-cutting) practices.

Prescribed Burn

A method in which forests are set on fire under controlled conditions in order to reduce the occurrence or strength of natural fires. Can also start natural nutrients and seed cycles typically started by real fires.

The Green Revolution

Increased food production using Monoculture, GMO, industrial machinery, fertilization, irrigation and pesticides.

Mechanization

The increased use of industrial farming to increases profits for farms but also increases use of fossil fuels.

Agricultural Irrigation

Number 1 use of freshwater. Types: Drip, furrow, flood, and spray irrigation.

Waterlogging

Occurs when too much water is left to sit in the soil inhibiting gas exchange in roots/soil.

Salinization

Occurs when the salts in groundwater remain in the soil when the water from irrigation evaporates. Overtime, soil salinity levels can be toxic for plants.

Overgrazing

Occurs when too many animals feed in a particular area of land. Causing a loss of vegetation, which leads to soil erosion and potential desertification.

CAFO

(Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations) the industrialization of meat production, used as a way to get animals quickly ready for slaughter.

Surface Mining

The removal of large volumes of earth, called overburden, in order access the ore or coal underneath leaving land prone to erosion and run-off (Strip or pit mining).

Acid Mine Drainage

Water pollution caused when sulfuric acid and dissolved heavy metals wash out of mines into nearby waterways.

Urban Sprawl

The change in population distribution from high population density areas to low density suburbs that spread into rural lands leading to potential environmental problems.

Sustainability

Humans living on earth and their use of resources without depleting for future generations.

Sustainable Yield

The amount of renewable resources that can be taken without reducing the available supply.

Integrated Pest Management (IPM)

Reduce risk of pesticides of wildlife, water supply and human health by using Biological, Physical and Chemical pest controls.

Sustainable Agriculture

Farming methods (Soil conservation, soil fertility and rotational grazing) that preserve long-term productivity of land and minimizes pollution, often by rotating soil- restoring crops with cash crops and reducing inputs of fertilizer and pesticides.

Nonrenewable Energy

An energy source with a finite supply, primarily the fossil fuels and nuclear fuels.

Renewable Energy

A resource that has a theoretically unlimited supply and is not depleted when used by humans.

Cogeneration

The use of a fuel to generate electricity and produce heat. Also known as combined heat and power.

Biomass

Organic matter used as a fuel, especially in a power station for the generation of electricity.

Geothermal Energy

Heat from Earth’s interior create steam to turn a turbine.

Photochemical Smog

An atmospheric condition formed through a combination of weather conditions and pollution, especially from motor vehicle emissions.

Thermal Inversion

A layer of dense, cool air trapped under a layer of less dense, warm air.

Acid Deposition

Acid rain that can lead to lower pH (acidification) of soils and bodies of water. (Coal burning = SOx and Fossil fuel combustion = NOx)

Point Source Pollution

Pollutants discharged from a single identifiable location (e.g., pipes, ditches, channels, sewers, tunnels, containers of various types).

Nonpoint Source Pollution

Pollution that comes from many sources rather than from a single specific site.

Cultural Eutrophication

An increase in fertility in a body of water, the result of anthropogenic inputs of nutrients.

BOD

Biochemical Oxygen Demand, measure of the amount of dissolved oxygen required to break down the organic material in a given volume of water through aerobic biological activity.

Endocrine Disruptors

Chemicals that interfere with the normal functioning of hormones in an animal's body.

Thermal Pollution

Heat released into water that can alter habits of local species.

POPs

Persistent Organic Pollutants, synthetic organic molecules such as PCBs, Dioxins, DDT, that are toxic/endocrine disruptors.

Bioaccumulation

The selective absorption of molecules (typically fat-soluble/ heavy metals & POPs) by cells/organisms.

Biomagnification

The increase in chemical concentration in animal tissues as the chemical moves up through the food web.