ecology ronold
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- What is leaching
- the process which the water seeps down, it dissolves various minerals and organic matter in upper layers and carries them to lower layers
- What is a frontier worldview
- the View by European colonists settling North America in the 1600s that the continent have vast resources and was a wilderness to be conquered by settlers clearing and planting land.
- What are carnivores
- eat meat such as foxes and fish feed on herbivores
- What is humus
- a porous mixture of the partially decomposed bodies of dead plants and animals
- What is geographic isolation
- occurs when different groups of the same population of a species become physically isolated from one another for long periods.
- What is the fundamental unit of ecology
- population of species
- What is the first law of thermodynamics?
- We cannot create or destroy energy.
- What is biomes
- large terrestrial regions characterized by similar climate, soil, plants, and animals, regardless of where they are found in the world.
- What is soil
- A complex mixture of inorganic minerals {clay, silt, pebbles, and sand], decaying organic matter, water, air, and living organisms.}
- What are producers
- sometimes called autotrophs make their own food from compounds and energy obtained from their environment.
- What are mutations
- Random change in DNA molecules making up genes that can alter anatomy, physiology, or behavior in offspring
- What is the basic unit of life
- molecule
- What are Consumers
- All other organisms in an ecosystem or heterotrophs that get the energy and nutrients they need by feeding on other organisms or their remains.
- What is net primary productivity
- Rate at which all the plants in an ecosystem produce net useful chemical energy; equal to the difference between the rate at which the plants in an ecosystem produce useful chemical energy and the rate at which they use some of that energy through cellular respiration.
- What is a eukaryotic cell
- Each cell of a eukaryotic organism is surrounded by a membrane and has a distinct nucleus and several other internal parts called organelles. Most organisms consist of eukaryotic cells.
- What is a negative feedback loop
- It causes a system to change in the opposite direction. Ex: Recycling aluminum cans. This involves melting aluminum and feeding it back into an economic system to make new aluminum products. This negative feedback loop of matter reduces the need to find, extract, and process virgin aluminum ore. Reduces the flow of waste matter into the environment.
- What is ecology
- Biological scientist who studies the relationship between living organisms and their environment; study of the structure and functions of nature
- What is a niche
- Total way of life or role of a species in an ecosystem. It includes all physical, chemical, and biological conditions that a species needs to live and reproduce in an ecosystem
- What is photosynthesis
- Complex process that takes place in cells of green plants. Radiant energy from the sun is used to combine carbon dioxide and water to produce oxygen, carbohydrates, and other nutrient molecules.
- What is weather
- The state of the atmosphere at a place and time as regards heat, cloudiness, dryness, sunshine, wind, rain, etc.
- What is ozone
- Layer of gaseous ozone in the stratosphere that protects life on earth by filtering out most harmful ultraviolet radiation from the sun.
- What is adaptation
- Any genetically controlled structural, physiological, or behavioral characteristic that helps an organism survive and reproduce under a given set of environmental conditions. It usually results from beneficial mutation
- What is a community
- Consists of all the populations of different species that live and interact in a particular area.
- What is a positive feedback loop
- A positive feedback loop causes a system to change further in he same direction. One example involves depositing money in a bank at compound interest and leaving it there. The interest increases the balance, which leads to more interest and an even higher balance.
- What is the most common gas in the atmosphere
- nitrogen
- the levels of the biological organization
- Organisms, populations, communities, ecosystems, biosphere
- what are food webs
- Complex network of many interconnected food chains and feeding relationships.
- What is pH
- Scientists use pH as a measure of the acidity of a solution based on its concentration of hydrogen ions.
- What is the root cause of environmental problems
- Population growth, wasteful resources use, poverty, poor environmental accounting, and environmental ignorance.
- What are soil horizons
- Horizontal zones that make up a particular mature soil. Each horizon has a distinct texture and composition that vary with different types of soils.
- What pollution?
- An undesirable change in the physical, chemical, or biological characteristics of air, water, soil, or food that can adversely affect the health, survival or activities of humans or other living organisms.
- Describe exponential Growth
- Growth in which some quantity, such as population size or economic output, increases at a constant rate per unit of time. Example 2,4,8,16,32,64...
- What is natural selection
- Process by which a particular beneficial gene [or set of genes] is reproduced in succeeding generations more than other genes. The result of natural selection is a population that contains a greater proportion of organisms better adapted to certain environmental conditions.
- What is an environmental worldview
- The view that world is able to be depleted and must be conserved.
- What is matter
- Matter is anything that has mass and takes up space. Exists in two forms- elements: the distinctive building blocks of matter that make up every material substance; compounds: two or more different elements held together in fixed proportions by attractive forces called chemical bonds.
- renewable resources
- Resources that can be replenished rapidly through natural processes as long as it is not used up faster than it is replaced.
- What are herbivores
- eat plants such as rabbits and zooplankton eat producers
- What is a biome
- They are large regions such as forests, deserts, and grasslands with distinct climates and specific species [especially vegetation] adapted to them.
- What is a theory
- A well tested a widely accepted hypothesis. It is the best and most useful answer to a scientific question based on an available scientific knowledge and great deal of research and evaluation.
- What are detrivores
- are insects and other scavengers that feed on the wastes or dead bodies of other organisms
- What is synergistic
- occurs when two or more processes interact so that the combined effect is greater than the sum of their separate effects.) Ex: two people working together to accomplish a task.
- What is a climate
- Physical properties of the troposphere of an area based on analysis of it weather records over a long period [at least 30 yrs].
- What is an ecosystem
- An ecosystem is a community where poulations of different species interact with one another and with their nonliving environment of matter and energy
- What is half-life
- Time needed for one-half of the nuclei in a radioisotope to emit their radiation. Each radioisotope has a characteristic half-life, which may range from a few millionths of a second to several billion years.
- What are isotopes
- Isotopes are various forms of an element having the same atomic number [# of protons] but different mass numbers[#of protons/ neutrons.
- What is rain shadow
- the area where no rainfall hits the land on the leeward side of a mountain where a desert would be
- What are food chains
- series of organisms in which each eats or decomposes the preceding one.