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Biology Ch 5
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Biodiversity | Number of different species living in a specific area. |
| Ecosystem | Biological community and all the nonliving factors that affect it. |
| Extinction | The disappearance of a species when the last of its members dies. |
| Genetic Diversity | Variety of inheritable characteristics or genes in an 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 DDT in organisms as tropic levels increase in 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 Fragmentation | 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 Rescources | 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 are. |
| Endemic | found only in one specific geography. |
| Nonrenewable Rescources | any natural resource available in limited amounts or replaced extremely slowly by natural processes. |
| Renewable Rescources | any resource replaced by natural processes more quickly than it is consumed. |
| Sustainable | using resources at a rate in which they can be replaced or recycled while preserving the long term environmental health of the biosphere. |