Vocab

4.3

• Methanogenic bacteria: Archaebacteria that metabolize nutrients without needing oxygen, and produce methane as a byproduct (instead of CO2).

• Methane: A powerful greenhouse gas.

• Peat: an organic substance made up of partially decomposed plant material found in wetlands such as swamps and bogs.

• Fossil Fuels: Deposits of coal, oil and natural gas, made from partially decomposed organic materials being compressed and fossilized over millions of years.

4.1

• Ecosystem: the organisms of a particular habitat together with the physical environment in which they live - for example, a tropical rainforest.

• Species: a group of individuals of common ancestry that closely resemble each other and are normally capable of interbreeding to produce fertile offspring.

• Population: a group of organisms of the same species that live in the same area at the same time.

• Community: a group of populations of organisms living and interacting within a habitat.

• Abiotic factors: aspect of the environment that is not living - for example, humidity, temperature, salinity, wind, soil particles.

• Biotic factors: the biological influences and factors on organisms in an ecosystem

• Ecology: the study of the relationships between living organisms and their environment, including both the physical environment and the other organisms that live in it.

• Autotrophs: organism able to make its own food from simple inorganic materials and an energy source.

• Heterotrophs: an organism that feeds on organic molecules.

• Consumers: an organism that feeds on another organism.

• Detritivores: an organism that feeds on dead organic matter through ingestion.

• Saprotrophs: organism that feeds on dead organic matter through absorption.

• Decomposers: organism that feeds on dead plant and animal matter so that it can be recycled; most decomposers are microorganisms.

• Mesocosm: A small-scale, self-sustaining natural system that can be used to study part of an ecosystem under controlled conditions.

• Symbiotic relationship: ‘living together’ - includes commensalism, mutualism and parasitism.

4.2

• Food Chain: a sequence of organisms in a habitat, beginning with a producer, in which each obtains nutrients by eating the organism preceding it.

• Producer: an autotrophic organism.

• Consumer: an organism that feeds on another organism.

• Trophic Level: a group of organisms that obtain their food from the same part of a food web and which are all the same number of energy transfers from the source of energy (photosynthesis).

• Primary Consumer: an organism that feeds on a primary producer.

• Food Web: a series of interconnected food chains.

• Energy pyramids: a diagram that shows the total energy content at different trophic levels in an ecosystem.

4.4

• Greenhouse Effect: Natural phenomenon which traps the sun's warmth in a planet's lower atmosphere

• Shortwave radiation: Solar energy (light) from the sun

• Longwave radiation: Infrared energy (heat) from the sun

• Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs): Chemicals found in aerosol bottles that damage the ozone layer in the atmosphere.

• Hydrofluorocarbons (HFC’s): Chemicals that replaced CFC’s role in society, that actually is a greenhouse gas.

• Global warming: Rise in the average global temperature.

• Climate change: Change in the earth’s weather patterns and climate as a results of global warming.

• Coral Bleaching: a process whereby the coral colonies lose their color, either due to the loss of pigments by microscopic algae living in symbiosis with their host organisms, coral polyps.

• Coral Polyps: tiny, soft-bodied organisms related to sea anemones and jellyfish. At their base is a hard, protective limestone skeleton, which forms the structure of coral reefs. Reefs begin when a polyp attaches itself to a rock on the seafloor, then divides, or buds, into thousands of clones.

• Ocean Acidification: term used to describe significant changes to the chemistry of the ocean. It occurs when carbon dioxide gas (or CO2) is absorbed by the ocean and reacts with seawater to produce acid.

• Arctic Ecosystem: Includes the tundra, permafrost and the sea ice, a huge floating mass surrounding the North Pole.

• Detritus: Organic matter produced by the decomposition of organisms

• Precautionary Principle: An approach to a problem that takes preventative measures, even if there may not be sufficient data to prove that the activity will cause harm.