Term | Definition |
Ecosystems | Are all living things, matter, and energy |
Photosynthesis | Is how all energy enters an ecosystem |
The Sun is the source of energy for an ecosystem | What is the source of energy in an ecosystem |
The plants get food from the sun by photosynthesis then a herbivore eats the plants | How does this energy enter the ecosystem |
Producers | are plants that make their own food |
Consumers | are animals or things that get their energy from eating plants or animals |
Autotroph | Are Producers |
Heterotroph | are consumers |
Detrivore | eats dead plant and animal matter |
-10% of the available energy is passed onto the next tropic level.
-The other 90% goes to: Growth, Maintenance, movement and heat | Energy in an ecosystem |
Productivity | the amount of biomass produced per unit area in one year |
Biomagnification | The amount of DDT moving from producers to primary consumers to secondary consumers, and so on. |
Biotic | living things |
Abiotic | non-living things |
Primary Succession | Takes place in an area with no previous living organism |
Secondary Succession | Takes place in an ecosystem after a disturbance to the previous climax community |
Succession | The gradual change in populations of organisms in an ecosystems leading to a climax community |
Catalyst | increases rate of reaction without actually taking part in the reaction |
inhibitor | slows down reaction rate |
Indicators | help identify acids and bases |
Wind | -caused by uneven heating of the earth
-warm air rises. Cool air comes into takes its place |
Coriolis Effect | -Wind is curved because the earth is rotating
-Curves to right in the northern hemisphere (opposite in the southern hemisphere) |
Cold Front | is when a moving cold air mass overtakes a warmer air masses |
Stationary Front | when cold air mass and a warm air mass are in contact but neither is moving |
occuded front | cold front catches up with a slower moving warm front. The cold pushes all warm air up, away from the ground. |
Pyramid of Biomass | Shows that Biomass decreases from each trophic level to the one above |
Pyramid of Energy | Measures the total chemical energy the flows through each tropic level |
Level of Consumers | Primary, secondary and tertiary |
Population | All organisms of the same species, living in the same ecosystem, at the same time |
Community | All living organisms,in the same ecosystem at the same time |
4 main factors that effect population size | Death, birth, moving in, and moving out |
Intraspecific competition | competition among members of the same species |
Interspecific competition | competition between two different species |
density-dependant factors | factors that increases in significance as a population grows |
density-independant | a natural disaster that will affect everything |