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