Term | Definition |
anthropogenic | human-induced ecosystem degradation |
ecosystem damage | adverse alteration of a natural system’s integrity, diversity, productivity |
pollutant | substance or form of energy, like hear, that adversely alters the physical, chemical, or biological quality of natural systems or that accumulates in the cells or tissues of living organisms in amounts that threaten their health or survival |
acute pollution effects | occur immediately upon or shortly after intro of a pollutant, readily detected |
chronic pollution effects | act in the long term; they are not noticed until several years/decades after the intro of the pollutant |
phototoxicity | increase in harmful effects of a pollutant that occurs due to the presence of sunlight |
synergistic effect | their combined effect is greater or more harmful than the sum of their individual effects |
bioaccumulation | storage of chemicals in an organism in higher concentrations that are normally found in the environment |
biomagnification | accumulation of chemicals in organisms in increasingly higher concentrations at successive trophic levels |
point-source pollution | emitted from an identifiable, specific source or point |
nonpoint-source pollution | cannot be traced to a specific source but rather comes from multiple generalized sources like farmland, parking lots and construction sites |
cross-media pollutants | affect the ecosystem by moving from one medium (air, water, soil) to another |
biodegradable | materials that can be broken down and rendered harmless by living systems |
nonbiodegradable | a substance that enters a system in a forn unusable by the organisms present in that system |
persistent pollutant | pollutant that accumulates in natural systems over time |
ecosystem disruption | rapid change in species composition of a community that can be traced directly to a specific human activity |
ecosystem destruction | conversion of a natural system, such as a wetland, to a less complex human system, such as a farm |
desertification | land degradation in arid, semi-arid, and dry subsumed regions resulting mainly from adverse human impact |
salinization | build-up of salts in the soil |
deforestation | cutting down and clearing away of forests |
siltation | process by which soil erodes from land surfaces and accumulate in streams and lakes |
frontier forests | expansive tracts of contiguous forest largely untouched by human activities |
fragmentation | patchwork of cropland, logging roads and smaller, discrete forest areas—results from chain saws and bulldozers cutting down frontier forests |