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How do energy and matter (chemicals) move in an ecosystem?
- Energy flows through the ecosystem
- Matter (chemicals) cycles within an ecosystem
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How many tropic levels are there? What are they?
4- Primary producers, Primary consumers, Secondary consumers, Tertiary consumers
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(autotrophs) typically harvests light energy from the sun; located at the base of the food chain
example of terrestrial and aquatic
- Primary producers
- Ex. Plant (terrestrial) and Phytoplankton (aquatic)
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(herbivore) an organism that obtains its food by eating primary producers
example of terrestrial and aquatic
- Primary consumers
- Ex. Caterpillar (terrestrial) and zooplankton (aquatic)
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(carnivore) an organism that feeds on secondary consumers
Example of terrestrial and aquatic
- Secondary consumers
- Ex. Lizard (terrestrial) and fish (aquatic)
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(secondary carnivore) an organism that feeds on secondary consumers
Example of terrestrial and aquatic
- Tertiary consumer
- Ex. Snake (terrestrial) and pelican (aquatic)
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What is the importance of decomposition in ecosystems?
They break down dead organisms from all tropic levels
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What are the first and second laws of thermodynamics?
- First: energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transferred or transformed
- Second: some energy is lost as heat in any conversation process
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What is an organism's production efficiency? How is it calculated?
- The percentage of energy assimilated by an organism that becomes incorporated into new biomass
- -production efficiency = net productivity/ assimilation x 100
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What is an organism's tropic-level transfer efficiency and how is it calculated?
- The amount of energy at one tropic level that is acquired by the tropic level above and incorporated into biomass
- - tropic level transfer efficiency = production at tropic level n/ production at trophic level n-1 x 100
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What is the amount of light energy converted to chemical energy by autotrophs during a given time period?
Primary production
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What is the gain in the biomass of heterotrophs and decomposers, they are much smaller than primary production and thought to be limited largely by available primary production?
Secondary production
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What is equal to GPP minus the energy used by primary producers for respiration- only NPP is available to consumers
net primary production (NPP)
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What is the total primary production
Gross primary production (GPP)
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Nutrient cycles involve both ______ and _____ components
Biotic and abiotic
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What cycle involves phosphorous, potassium, calcium, and other elements in the soil and water?
Local cycle
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What cycle involves gaseous forms of carbon, oxygen, sulfur, and nitrogen in the atmosphere
Global cycles
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What is the precipitation with a pH of less than 5.6 and results from the burning of fossil fuels?
Acid rain
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What is the process by which elevated nutrient levels in a body of water lead to an overgrowth of algae or aquatic plants and a subsequent depletion of water oxygen levels when these photosynthesizers decay?
Eutrophication
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What is the increase in the concentration of a higher substance in living organisms from lower to higher tropic levels in a food web?
Biological magnification
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What is caused by atmospheric CO2, is necessary to keep the surface of the Earth at a habitable temperature, increased levels of CO2 are magnifying the effect, and could cause global warming?
Greenhouse effect
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