Term | Definition |
Agriculture | farming |
Monoculture | large fields are planted with the same crop year after year |
Green revolution | modern farming practices that include monoculture and the use of chemical fertilizers |
Renewable resources | can regenerate if they are alive or can be replenished by biochemicla cycles if they are nonliving (trees, water) |
Nonrenewable resources | cannot be replenished by natural processes |
Sustainable development | a way of using natural resources without depleting them |
Soil erosion | the wearing away of surface soil by water and wind |
Desertification | a dry climate, a combination of farming, overgrazing, and drought
that turns productive areas into desert |
Deforestation | loss of forests |
Aquaculture | raising aquatic animals for human consumption |
Smog | a mixture of chemicals that occures as a gray-brown haze in the atomosphere |
Pollutant | a harmful material that can enter the biosphere through the land, air, or water |
Acid rain | when compounds from burning fossil fuels mixes with water vapor in the air, drops of nitric and sulfuric acids form |
Biodiversity | the sum total of the genetically based variety of all organisms in the biosphere |
Ecosystem diversity | the variety of habitats, communities, and ecological processes in the living world |
Species diversity | refers to the number of different species in the biosphere |
Genetic diversity | refers to the sum total of all the different forms of genetic information carried by all organisms living on Earth today |
Extinction | occurs when a species disappears from all or part of its range |
Endangered species | a species whose population size is declining in a way that places it in danger of extinction |
Habitat fragmentaion | the splitting of ecosystems into pieces |
Biological magnification | concentrations of a harmful substance increase in organisms at higher trophic levels in a food chain or food web |
Invasive species | living organisms that enter new habitats and reproduce rapidly |
Conservation | the wise management of natural resources, including the preservation of habitats and wildlife |
Ozone layer | the layer of atmosphere above the Earth that contains a relatively high concentration of ozone gas |
Global warming | the increase in the aveage temperature of the biosphere |