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23 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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Producers |
Makes foods (plants single called organisms) Most make food by photosynthesis |
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Consumers |
Takes in food already made (Animals and decomposers) |
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Biomass |
Dry mass of living organisms per square meter at a given time
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How can biomass be estimated? |
Using calorimetry |
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Gross primary production (GPP) |
Chemical energy store in plant biomass in a given area/vol in a given time |
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What is an other name for decomposers? |
Saprobionts |
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What are examples of saprobionts? |
Fungi & bacteria |
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Saprobionts |
Obtain food by breaking down dead organisms Breakdown is due to them releasing enzymes and products are the absorbed by decomposers |
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Productivity |
Rate at which biomass is produced per unit area of plant surface area Vol of photosynthetic tissues are produced per unit time |
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Net primary production (NPP) |
Chemical energy store in plant biomass after respiratory losses to the environment have been taken into account NPP = GPP - R |
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What does R represent |
Respiratory losses to the environment |
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How can the net production of consumers (N) be calculated? |
N = I - (F+R) |
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What does I represent? |
Chemical energy store in ingested food |
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What does F represent? |
Chemical loss to the env in faeces and urine |
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What does R represent? |
Respiratory losses to the env |
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Where does phosphorus tend to be held? |
In phosphate ions in rock |
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Phosphorus cycle |
Climate (rain) weathers rock Released phosphate ions Pass to environment (water soil) Producers absorb ions from env Consumers/producers die & decomposers break them down Releases phos into env Phos recycled and available for absorption by new gen of producers or transfer from prod to consumers |
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Farms |
Farms are ecosystems and people are consumers |
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Intensive farminf |
Increase productivity (max food produced) Fertilisers on field to increase productivity |
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Feetilisers |
Add nutrients to soil Increases prod as they replace nutrients that crops take up |
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Natural feetilisers |
Manure and compost Fungi and bacteria decompose the material which releases nutrients which are taken up by crops |
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Artificial fertilisers |
Man made Contain nitrogen phosphorus and potassium (NPK) |
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What is an issue with fertilisers contains nitrogen? |
Eutrophication |
