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14 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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System |
Any interconnected set of components that acts as a whole.
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What are the components of ecosystems?
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Organisms like plants, animals, and microorganisms.
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What is a positive feedback loop?
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These are feedback loops in which an increase in output leads to an increase in input.
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What is negative feedback?
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These are feedback loops in which an increase in output leads to a decrease in input.
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What is the concept of Environmental Unity?
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It suggests that "everything is hitched to everything else" in an ecosystem. |
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What is Uniformatarianism? |
The concept of Uniformatarianism suggests that the history of the earth can be found i fossils trapped in the layers of rocks, with the lowest layers containing the oldest rocks and fossils. |
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What is Exponential growth? |
It is a constant rate of growth in which the number of organisms at any time is a multiple of the number present in the previous time period. Example of positive feedback. |
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What is doubling time? |
Doubling time is the time necessary for the quantity of whatever is being measured to double. |
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What is residence time? |
Residence time is the average amount of time it takes for materials in a pool of resources to cycle through the system. |
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What does biota mean? |
The biota are the living things on earth. |
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What is the Biosphere? |
The Biosphere is the surface layer of the Earth in which the biota can be found, including rocks, water, and air. |
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What are extinction rates? |
They measure the number of species that have disappeared from earth over time. |
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What is the Gaia hypothesis? |
The super organism concept for earth's ecosystems that suggests there is a giant positive feed back loop in which some life forms promote the conditions for others. |
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Is the Gaia hypothesis a testable scientific hypothesis? |
No because it is a world view rather than a hypothesis. |
