Unit 2 Vocabulary Part 1

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Unit 2 Vocabulary List Part 1

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Ecosystem services - the processes by which life-supporting resources such as clean water, timber, fisheries, and agricultural crops are produced

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Environmental indicator - an indicator that describes the current state of an environmental system

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Biodiversity - the diversity of life form in an environment

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Genetic diversity - a measure of the genetic variation among individuals in a population

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Species - a group of organisms that is distinct from other groups in its morphology (body form and structure), behavior, or biochemical properties

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Species diversity - the number of species in a region or in a particular ecosystem

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Speciation - the evolution of new species

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Background extinction rate - the average rate at which species become extinct over the long term

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Greenhouse gases - gases in Earth’s atmosphere that trap heat near the surface

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Anthropogenic - derived from human activities

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Per capita - amount per each person in a country or unit of population

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Development - improvement in human well-being through economic advancement

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Sustainability - living on earth in a way that allows human to use its resources without depriving future  generations of those resources

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Sustainable development - development that balances current human well-being and economic advancement with resources management for the benefit of future generations

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Ecological footprint - a measure of how much an individual consumes, expressed in area of land

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Keystone species - a species that is not very abundant but has large effects on an ecology community

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Ecosystem engineer - a keystone species that creates or maintains habitat for other species

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Ecological succession - the predictable replacement of one group of species by another group of species over time

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Primary succession - ecological succession occurring on surfaces that are initially devoid of soil

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Secondary succession - the succession of plants life that occurs in areas that have been disturbed but have not lost their soil

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Pioneer species - a species that can colonize new areas rapidly and grow well in full sunshine

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Climax community - historically described as the final stage of succession

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Theory of island biogeography - a theory that demonstrates the dual importance of habitat size and distance in determining species richness

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Disturbance - an event, caused by physical, chemical, or biological agents resulting in changes in population size or community composition

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Unit 2 Vocabulary List Part 2

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Resistance - a measure of how much a disturbance can affect flows of energy and matter in an ecosystem

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Resilience - the rate at which an ecosystem returns to its original state after a disturbance

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Restoration ecology - the study and implementation of restoring damaged ecosystems

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Intermediate disturbance hypothesis - the hypothesis that ecosystems experiencing intermediate levels of disturbance are more diverse that those with high or low disturbance rates

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Species richness - the number of species in a given area

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Species evenness - the relative proportion of individuals within the different species in a given area

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Phylogeny - the branching pattern of evolutionary relationships

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Evolution - a change in the genetic composition of a population over time

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Fitness - an individual’s ability to survive and reproduce

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Adaptation - a trait that improves an individual’s fitness

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Gene flow - the process by which individuals move from one population to another and thereby alter the genetic composition of both populations

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Genetic drift - a change in the genetic composition of a population over time as a result of random mating

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Bottleneck effect - a reduction in the genetic diversity of a population caused by a reduction in its size

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Extinction - the death of the last member of a species

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Founder effect - a change in the genetic composition of a population as a result of descending from a small number of colonizing individuals

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Range of tolerance - the limits to the abiotic conditions that a species can tolerate

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Fundamental niche - the suite of abiotic conditions under which a species can survive, grow and reproduce

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Realized niche - the range of abiotic and biotic conditions under which a species actually live

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Distribution - areas of the world in which a species live

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Niche generalist - a species that can live under a wide range of abiotic and biotic conditions

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Niche specialist - a species that is specialized to live in a specific habitat or to feed on a small group 0f species

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Intrinsic value - value independent of any benefit to humans

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Instrumental value - worth as an instrument or a tool that can be used to accomplish a goal

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Provision - a good that humans can use directly

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