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48 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
Ecology |
Study of organisms interacting with their non living environment. |
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Eukaryotic organism |
Surrounded by a distinct nucleus. |
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Prokaryotic organism |
Surrounded by membrane, not nuclues |
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Bacteria |
Single celled prokaryotic organism |
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Microbe |
Moslty invisible rulers of the earth |
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Habitat |
Place or environment where a population normally lives |
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Ecosystem |
Community of different species interacting in a physical environemtn |
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Atmosphere |
Thin layer of air around the planet |
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Troposphere |
In layer |
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Stratosphere |
Next layer, stretching 17-48 kilometres above earths surface |
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Biosphere |
Portion of earth where living organisms interact |
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Greenhouse gases |
Water vapour, carbon dioxide, methane nitrous and ozone |
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Biomes |
Large regions like forests deserts and grasslands |
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Aquatic life zones |
Numerous eco-systems, lakes oceans etc |
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Abiotic |
Two types of components that make up the biosphere. Abiotic consists of non living components such as water, nutrients, solaar energy |
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Biotic |
Living component, plants, animals |
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Range of tolerance |
Variations in its physical and chemical environment |
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Law of tolerance |
The existence, abundance, and distribution of a species in an ecosytem |
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Limiting factor principle |
Too much or too of any abiotic factor can limit growth |
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Dissolved oxygen content |
amount of oxygen gas dissolved in a given volume of water at a temp and pressure. |
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Salinity |
amount of inorganic minerals or salts dissolved in a given volume of water |
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Producers |
Self feeders |
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Photosysnthesis |
Uses solar energy to tranforms chemicals |
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Chloroplasts |
Cells that absorb sunlight |
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Chemosynthesis |
Turning chemicals into complex compounds without sunlight |
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Consumers |
Energy from feeding on other organisms |
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Decomposers |
decompose |
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Detritus |
Dead organic material |
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Detritivores |
feed on detritus |
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Aerobic respiration |
Uses oxygen to release enery from the compounds to fuel their life process |
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Anaerobic respiration |
Break down glucose in the absence of oxygen |
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Biodiversity |
Vital resource found in the earth's variety of specicies |
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Genetic diversity |
Variety of genetic material with a population |
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SPecies diversity |
Number of species present in different habitats |
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Ecological diversity |
Variety of aquatic ecosytems |
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Functional diversity |
energy and matter flow |
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Structural diversity |
Physcial characteristics variations |
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Trophic level |
Feeding level, organisms are assigned to producers or consumers or decomposers. |
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Biomass |
Dry weight of all organic matter |
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Ecological efficiency |
Percentage of energy transferred as biomass from one trophic level to anotehr |
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Pyramid of energy flow |
Energy lost through travel between organism |
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Gross primary productivity |
Rate at which eco systems converst energy |
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Net primary productivity |
Rate at which photosyntheis to store energy minus the rate at which they use the energy |
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Soil |
thin layer covering land, rock, nutrients, decaying matter |
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Soil horizion |
Mature soils or developed soils over a long period of time form a horizontal layer of soils |
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Soil profule |
cross sectional view of the soil horizons |
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Surface litter layer 0 horizion |
top layer |
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Topsoil layer |
porous mixture of paritally decomposed organic matter |