Mountains, frontal systems, local convection, and tropical convergance
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what is a side effect of the mountain way to make rain?
Rain shadows which usually create deserts
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Frontal systems are an example of what feedback loop?
A positive feedback loop
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How is rain made?
Rain is made by moving moist air upwards until it cools to the dewpoint, and water vapor begins to condense
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What vegetation are tropical rainforests dominated by?
Broad leaf evergreens
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What is the term for plants growing on plants?
Epiphites
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What is the dominant vegetation of tropical seasonal forests?
dry deciduous broad leafs
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There ___ clear lines between biomes
are no
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What is the dominant vegetation of tropical savanna and grasslands?
mixture of trees and grasses, grasslands have mostly grass while savannas have occasional drought resistent trees
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Why is grass so important to grasslands and savannas?
Grass supports a high biomass of large area grazers since 2/3rds of it is below ground and it is edible.
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The Serengeti savanna is threatened by wildfire ____
Suppression
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A desert is defined when:
potential evapotranspiration far exceeds rainfall for most of the year
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What are the ways that there are deserts?
In the spot between the hadley and ferrel cells, and rain shadows
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Why is the broadleaf sclerophyll/chaparral considered its own biome?
It has unique vegetation dominated by drought resistent shrubs and has a high population of people living in it
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emperate grassland/prairie is largely maintained by what?
Fires
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What vegetation dominated temperate decidious forests?
winter-decidious trees
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What are spring ephemerals characterized by
Completing most of their growth in a brief period of spring and remaining dormant as seeds for the rest of the year
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Temperate rainforests are characterized as:
Wet maritime climate with the tallest trees
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Boreal forests or tiaga are often called the moose, spruce biome, why?
Moose and spruce are abundant throughout the biome yet are not directly part of each others food chains, moose prefer broadleaf trees and shrubs that come from disturbed lands
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Why do trees in the boreal forest or tiaga have a monopodial shape rather than an umbrella?
Monopodial is more vertical which catches more of the suns rays that are towards the horizon versus above them
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permafrost:
a layer of soil a short distance below the surface that is frozen all the time
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Why does surface matter in terms of water on earth?
because most ecosystems run on solar energy arriving at the earth’s surface
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Freshwater is important to us but very _____
scarce
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water has a very high specific heat, what does this mean?
it takes a lot of E loss or gain to change water temperature
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What do you need to be an endotherm in water?
Be big with a lower surface area to volume ratio or come out of the water periodically
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Diffusion is ____ in water vs air
slower
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Gas exchange in water is much quicker when the water is _____
moving
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Why are Sessile algae and animals are often most abundant in the moving water of rivers and shorelines
Because the moving water speeds up the uptake of CO2 and nutrients
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What are the main limitations in water?
nutrients and light
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Marine ecosystems are more productive _____
near land because more nutrient rich currents come to the surface and light is more available
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There is ____ more saltwater than freshwater
MUCH
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A continental shelf:
has basically the same bedrock as continental rock, and is confined to the immediate edges of the continents
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The deep sea floor:
has dark bedrock made of the basaltic geologically distinct ocean floor and does not have many nutrients
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Palagic means
open water
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Benthic means
On or near bottom (earth)
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Surface palagic is
near the surface and primary production (photosynthesis) will be limited by nutrients
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Deep palagic is
limited by light, since there is no local primary productivity
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Shallow Benthic are genrally
rich and productive
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Deep Benthic is also called the
abyssal plane
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Deep benthic is limited by
light and nutrient “rain”
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What is unique about mid-ocean ridges?
There is no sunlight but they host an entire productive ecosystem based on sulfur bacteria living off the mineral-laden hot water coming up from vents in the ocean floor
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Mid-ocean ridges often have _______ concentrations of life
Extremely dense
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The energy running the biosphere is ultimately
Solar energy captured by photosynthesis
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How do bacteria support life in mid-ocean ridges
capturing chemical energy by oxidizing the sulfides (H2S, \n FeS, etc.) through chemiosis
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The energy running the mid-ocean ridge community ______ captured by photosynthesis
is not
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Bacteria in mid-ocean vents make their living by ______ which means they need what provided from what process?
Oxidizing, oxygen, provided by photosynthesis
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As energy flows through the Earth it is _______
degraded (made less concentrated)
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What type of system is the Earth in terms of energy?
an open system
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The energy leaving the earth is less concentrated, and therefore what?
Less able to do work
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A single photon of visible light has roughly how much of the energy of a single photon of infrared?
10x
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The Earth is what type of system in regards to matter? This means what?
A closed system which means matter doesn’t enter or leave in significant amounts
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Has Earth always been a closed system in terms of matter?
No, 4.6 billion years ago during the hadean period asteriod strikes were common
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matter and energy movements are what?
Couples (or paired)
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An efficiancy:
is a basic concept that gets used a lot in ecosystem ecology and other areas of science that is a dimensionless number that can be expressed as a proportion
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Of the solar energy that hits a leaf how much of it is captured by phtosynthesis?
5%
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Efficiency of photosynthesis =
E captured by photosynthesis / E hitting the leaf = \~ 0.05
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primary productivity is:
Solar energy captured by photosynthesis in plants
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What are the units of primary production
biomass (dry g/m^2/year) or energy (joules)
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What is NPP
Net primary productivity (NPP) is GPP minus plant respiration (proportional to total accumulated plant matter \n produced)
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What is the NPP of tropical rainforests
2000 g/m2/year
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What is the NPP of temperate grasslands
1200 g/m2/year
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What is the NPP of deserts
70 g/m2/year
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What is the NPP of marshes and coral reefs
2000 to 2500 g/m2/year
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What is the NPP of productive ocean and inland water
400 g/m2/year
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What is the NPP of open ocean
125 g/m2/year
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Terrestrial NPP is highest when:
its warm (faster biochemistry), there’s a long growing season, its wet (CO2 uptake not limited), and less importantly there’s good soil
Recycling from decay, weathering of rocks and soil when exposed to air or water (fastest on land)
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What is a limiting resource?
The resource present in the lowest concentration \n relative to need is the limiting resource
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Ocean primary productivity is high where?
Where nutrients are high such as close to the coast, in upwelling zones, and when dust storms bring desert dust to the mid-ocean
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What is the problem that faces cattail marshes?
Nutrients can be locked up in organic matter which may decay slowly when oxygen in the sediments is low and roots need oxygen to survive and thrive
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What are Aerenchyma?
an open, air-filled tissue in leaves, rhizomes \n (underground stems) and roots that moves oxygen into the roots and surrounding sediments. This allows the roots to breathe, and the sediments to decay more quickly so it is a solution to marsh plants
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Why is the high productivity of coral reefs odd?
since their waters do not generally have high nutrient concentrations, they have lower plankton since coral are filter feeders
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