Geosphere/Lithosphere
rocks,minerals,earths crust
Atmosphere
Air,gases
Hydrosphere
water
biosphere
plants,animals,living things
biotic
Are living or once were
abiotic
Non-living things that influence an ecosystem
herbivore
organism that only eats plants
carnivore
organism that eats mostly/only meat
omnivore
organism that eats both plants and animals
detrivore
organisms that eat deccaying organic material
decomposer
organism that breaks down decaying material into nutrients
producer
organisms that produce their own food
food chain
feeding relationships between organisms
food web
over lapping and interconnecting food chains
primary conumers
first to consume on the trophic level
secondary consumer
second to consume on the trophic level
teritary consumer
third to consume on a trophic level
photosynthesis
the process in which plant produce oxygen and glucose
cellular respiration
the process in which animals produce carbon dioxide and water
Primary Succesion
Newly exposed or newly exposed rock is colonized by living things for the first time
Secondary succesion
An area that has been disrupted (flood,eruption) but recolinizes after
Dissolved oxygen
The amount of oxygen available to aquatic organisms
Biological oxygen demand
The amount of oxygen needed by decomposers in an aquatic ecosystem to break up waste
Eutrophication
Inorganic enrichment of natural waters, leading to an increased production of algae and macrophytes
Oligotrophic
Healthy lake
Keystone species
typically an apex predator that regulates the population of lower trophic levels, therefore keeping ecosystems in equilibrium. Part of the food web would die off without them
Biodiversity
the number of different types of organisms (species) within an ecosystem
Carrying capacity
The carrying capacity is the maximum population size (number of individuals of the same species) that an ecosystem can maintain over a period of time
Dynamic Equillibrium
when the forward and reverse processes occur at the same rate, resulting in no observable change in the system.
Limiting factor
anything that constrains a population's size and slows or stops it from growing.
Carbon cycle
nature's way of reusing carbon atoms, which travel from the atmosphere into organisms in the Earth and then back into the atmosphere over and over again
Nitrogen cycle
a biogeochemical process through which nitrogen is converted into many forms, consecutively passing from the atmosphere to the soil to organism and back into the atmosphere
autotroph
producer
heterotroph
consumer