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chapter 5 vocab
biodiversity and conservation
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| biodiversity | number of different species living in a specific area |
| ecosystem | biological community and all the nonliving facotors and affect it |
| extinction | the disappearance of a species when the last of its members die |
| genetic diversity | variety of inheritable characteristics or games in a n interbreeding population |
| species diversity | in a biological community, the number and abundance of different species |
| background extinction | gradual process of a species becoming extinct |
| biological magnification | increasing concentration of toxic substances, such as tropic levels increase to food chains or food webs |
| edge effect | any different environmental condition occurring along an ecosystem's boundaries |
| eutrophication | water pollution from nitrogen rich and phosphorus rich substances flowing into waterways, causing algal overgrowth |
| habitat fragmenation | habitat loss from separation of an ecosystem into small pieces of land |
| introduced species | nonnative species deliberately or accidentally introduced into a new habitat |
| mass extinction | a large scale dying out of a large percentage of all living organisms in an area within a short time |
| natural resource | any material or organism in the biosphere, including water, soil, fuel, and plants and animals |
| overexploitation | overuse of species with economic value-a factor in species extinction |
| biological augmentation | technique of adding essential materials to a degraded ecosystem |
| bioremediation | technique using living organisms to detoxify a polluted area |
| endemic | found only in one specific geographic area |
| nonrenewable resource | any natural resource available in limited amounts or replaced extremely slowly by natural process |
| renewable resource | any resource replaced by natural processes more quickly than it is consumbed |
| sustainable | use of resources at a rate that they can be replaced or recycled |