APES Today
The Carbon cycle is the basic building block of which components necessary for life?
-Carbs -Fats -Proteins -DNA -Organic Compounds
Biomes
A large naturally occurring community of flora and fauna occupying a major habitat
Food webs
A system of interlocking and interdependent food chains
Hydrosphere
All the water on earth
Nitrification
Ammonia is converted to nitrate ions (NO3-).
Predation
An interaction in which one organism kills another for food
Gut inhabitant mutualism
Armies of bacteria in the digestive systems of animals help break down their host's food
What are the 4 main spherical systems?
Atmosphere, hydrosphere, geosphere, biosphere
Another word for producers
Autotrophs
Commensalism
Benefits one species but has little good/bad effect on the other
Secondary consumers
Carnivores that eat herbivores
This rate of reaction can be measured in the dark by determining the amount of oxygen gas consumed in a period of time
Cellular Respiration
Interspecific competiton
Competition between members of different species
Intraspecific competition
Competition between members of the same species
Cold forests are also called:
Coniferous, boreal, or taigas -usually have evergreens and winter droughts
Biosphere
Consists of all life on Earth and all parts of the Earth in which life exists, including the 3 other systems
Geosphere
Consists of the earth's intensely hot core, a thick mantle composed mostly of rock, and a thin outer crust, contains crucial chemicals for organisms
Detrivores
Consumers that derive their nutrition from nonliving, organic matter
Denitrification
Conversion of nitrates into nitrogen gas
What group conducts anaerobic respiration?
Decomposers, they get their energy by breaking down glucose
Biomass
Determined by how much solar energy an ecosystem produces and can capture/ store as chemical energy and by how rapidly they do so
Tertiary consumers
Eat secondary consumers
Transpiration
Evaporation of water from the leaves of a plant
The water cycle consists of what processes?
Evaporation, precipitation, transpiration
Primary consumers
Herbivores
Another word for consumers
Heterotrophs
Tropical rainforest have what kind of NPP?
High NPP because there is a large variety of producers
Producer bacteria live where?
In the dark in hot water around fissures on the ocean floor (Source of energy is heat from the earth's interior)
Ecology
Interactions among and between organisms and their environment
Food chains
Link trophic levels from producers to top carnivores
The ocean has what kind of NPP?
Low, but it produces tons of earth's biomass
The total rate of photosynthesis in a given area
NPP
Nitrogen fixation
Process of converting nitrogen gas into ammonia
GPP
Rate at which an ecosystem's producers capture and store a given amount of chemical energy as biomass in a given length of time
NPP
Rate at which producers use photosynthesis to produce and store chemical energy minus the rate t which the chemical energy is used through aerobic respiration
Anaerobic respiration
Respiration that does not require oxygen
Savanna (Tropical grassland)
Scattered trees and bushes -Warm yearly temps -Alternating dry/wet seasons
Stratosphere
The second-lowest layer of Earth's atmosphere, lower half holds ozone layer
Farmers in a suburban coastal town started using no-till agriculture, a practice that reduces soil erosion from their farmland. What long-term effect does no-till agriculture will have on the ecosystem surrounding the farmland?
There will be less algal growth in the nearby ocean
Arctic tundra (Cold grassland)
This biome supports a low number of plant species, receives little rain, and plants have shallow root zones due to permafrost and wet soil
The atmosphere consists of what 2 systems?
Troposphere and stratosphere
What is a carbon sink that holds carbon compounds for the shortest period of time?
Vegetation
Resource partitioning
When species divide a niche (tree for example) to avoid competition for resources
Matter and nutrients have ___ cycles and abide to the 1st/ 2nd law of thermodynamics and the law of the conservation of matter
cyclical
Energy has a ___ pathway and requires constant input
linear
Temperate
mild, moderate -warm summers -cold winters
Cities create microclimates resulting in:
-More haze and smog -Higher temps -Heat islands -Lower wind speeds
Why are deserts fragile?
-Slow plant growth cycles -Low species diversity -Slow nutrient cycling -Little water
The equator
0 degrees latitude -Air is heated more here because the sun strikes directly -At the poles, the sun strikes at a lighter angles with greater area
This biome contains a nutrient-rich environment created by falling leaves and trapped organic materials from the large trees, and it provides the ecosystem service of filtering pollutants from water
Freshwater wetlands
Consumers can't produce what for themselves?
Nutrients
Detritus feeders
Organism that extracts nutrients from fragments of dead organism and their cast-off parts and organic wastes
Decomposers
Organisms that break down the dead remains of other organisms
How do producers get glucose for energy?
Oxygen > Glucose > Carbon Dioxide > Water
What cycle doesn't include the atmosphere and is slow in comparison to the others?
Phosphorus cycle
In open water, the dominant producers are
Phytoplankton
This freshwater biome is characterized by fast-flowing water that can originate from underground springs or runoff, which carries sediment and organic material
Rivers
What is runoff?
Runoff is water that falls on a watershed that does not soak into the ground to become groundwater
Temperate Grassland
Short and tall grasses adapted to cool climates in the winter and hot/ dry summers
The majority of the nitrogen on Earth can be found in which of the following reservoirs?
Soil bacteria
What happens to energy in an ecosystem?
The amount of energy available to organisms at each each feeding level decreases. 10% law of energy transfer. When energy is passed in an ecosystem from one trophic level to the next, only ten percent of the energy will be passed on
Climate
The average weather conditions in an area over a long period of time
Weather
The condition of Earth's atmosphere at a particular time and place (Temperature, rain, humidity, wind, clouds, etc.)
Which describes the most likely change to terrestrial biomes resulting from warmer average global temperatures?
The global distribution of midlatitude biomes, such as grasslands and temperate rain forests, would increase
Troposphere
The lowest layer of Earth's atmosphere, contains the air we breathe, mostly nitrogen and oxygen