uwo 2485 - enviro bio (terms & definitions)
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uwo 2485 - enviro bio (terms & definitions) - Leaderboard
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124 questions
| 🇬🇧 | 🇬🇧 |
| Variant on human population growth (population size, how resources are used, meeting necessities, valuation of ecological services, lack of knowledge) | Supply and demand |
| Maximal rate a population can increase when there are no limits on its rate of growth (unlimited resources = unlimited growth) | Biotic potential |
| Limiting factors that act together to limit growth of a population | Environmental resistance |
| Not to run out within human time scale (ex. direct solar energy) | Perpetual resources |
| Renewed fairly rapidly by the sun directly or indirectly | Potentially renewable resources |
| Rate a potentially renewable resource can be used indefinitely without reducing supply (ex. forest, fresh h2o, fresh air, fertile soil) | Sustainable yield |
| Exhaustible resources | Nonrenewable resources |
| Exceed renewable resource replacement rate (potentially renewable resources changed to nonrenewable or unusable) | Environmental degradation |
| Everything is a sum of its parts (do not completely understand function of species in a system) | Reductionist view |
| Based on limited knowledge (uncertainties) | Quotas, harvests, etc. |
| Organized, concentrated, dilute, near surface | High quality matter |
| Disorganized, dilute or dispersed | Low quality matter |
| Measurement of usefulness of energy to do work | Energy quality |
| Organized, concentrated, great ability to perform useful work | High quality energy |
| Disorganized, dispersed, little ability to do useful work | Low quality energy |
| Matter can neither be created nor destroyed by natural physical and chemical changes, but transferred/changed from one form to another | Law of conservation of matter |
| Energy can neither be created nor destroyed, energy input = energy output **does not apply to nuclear charges | Law of conservation of energy (1st law of thermodynamics) |
| Energy quality is lost when converted from one form to another | Second law of energy (2nd law of thermodynamics) |
| Autotrophs, first trophic level | Producers |
| Decomposers/detritus feeders (recyclers) | Detritivores |
| Sequence of who eats or decomposes whom in a system, determines how energy moves through the system | Food web/chain |
| Transfer of chemical energy (creates biomass) | The currency of life |
| Truest representation of energy available in an ecosystem | Pyramid of energy |
| Rate @ which producers convert solar energy into chemical energy as biomass (rate of solar to chemical energy) | Gross primary productivity (GPP) |
| Rate @ which energy made by producers is available for use by consumers (rate energy is created for consumers) **carrying capacity | Net primary productivity (NPP) |
| Based on function and complexity (1.biosphere. 2.ecosystem, 3.community, 4.population, 5.organism) | Organizing matter |
| Terrestrial and aquatic | Biosphere division |
| Made up of interacting ecosystems | Biosphere |
| Nonliving components | Abiotic |
| Living components | Biotic |
| Zones of transition between 2 adjacent habitats | Transition zones |
| Natural processes necessary to maintain other ecosystem services | Support services |
| Control, adjust, manage | Regulate |
| Aesthetic beauty | Cultural services |
| Absence, presence, or abundance tells about environmental conditions | Indicator species |
| Deliberate or accidental introduction, harmful to environment | Exotic/invasive species |
| Range of physical and chemical environment a species can exist in | Species tolerance |
| Evolution through natural selection | Adaptation |
| Geographic and reproductive isolation | Allopatric speciation |
| Mutation or behavioural change (less common) | Sympatric speciation |
| Low level species disappearance, change in local conditions | Background extinction |
| Catastrophic and widespread | Mass extinction |
| Higher than background but limited | Mass depletion |
| Things species do to survive that contribute to reproductive success (subject to natural selection) | Behavioural adaptation |
| Weedy species - high growth rate, tend to dominate (lowers species diversity) | Frequent disturbance |
| Fast to return to original state | High resilience |
| Slow to return to original state | Low resilience |
| Many species perform same structure and function within an ecosystem | Functional and structural redundancy |
| Change in species composition in area, diversity, trophic structure, matter cycling, and energy flow | Succession |
| All biota are wiped out (complete loss) | Primary succession |
| Biota and sediments remain, has starting point/has soil | Secondary succession |
| Human intervention to assist in succession | Restoration |
| Regulates climate and distributes nutrients | Ocean currents (water circulation) |
| Drive surface currents | Prevailing winds |
| Driven by thermohaline circulation (temperature and salinity differences) | Great ocean conveyor belt |
| Atmosphere closest to earth's surface | Troposphere |
| Regulates global climate | Natural greenhouse effect |
| Features of earth's surface | Topography |
| Effect on local climate as a result of human interference | Urban heat island effect |
| Relatively large O layer, well developed A horizon (seasons input organic material) | Deciduous forest soil |
| Most productive in NPP, not much A horizon (high rainfall leaches nutrients out of soil, lack of seasons) | Tropical rain forest soil |
| Lots of organic input | Grassland soil |