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| The study of the interactions between organisms and their environment is called ___. | ecology |
| The combined parts of the Earth that contain life is called ____. | the biosphere |
| If two animals can breed together and produce fertile offspring, they are members of the same ___. | species |
| Members of the same species must be able to mate and produce ____ offspring. | fertile |
| A group of organisms that belong to the same species and live in the same general area is called a(n) ____. | population |
| A group made up of all the different species living in the same area is called a(n) ___. | community |
| The living and non-living things that interact in a certain area is called a(n) ____. | ecosystem |
| A group of ecosystems that have the same climate and rainfall patterns is called a(n) ___. | biome |
| For two organisms to be considered members of the same species, they must be able to mate and produce ____ offspring. | fertile |
| What are two names that describe organisms that can make their own food? | Producers, Autotrophs |
| Another word for consumer is ____. | heterotroph |
| What are two words to describe organisms that must rely on other organisms for their energy and food supply? | Consumers, Heterotrophs |
| What do you call organisms that feed only on plants? | Herbivores |
| What do you call organisms that only feed on other animals? | Carnivores |
| What do you call organisms that feed on both plants and animals? | Omnivores |
| What do you call organisms that get energy by breaking down organic matter left over from dead organisms? | Decomposers |
| Describe how energy in an ecosystem moves? | It moves in a one-way path, from the sun or inorganic compounds, to producers and then consumers. |
| Describe how matter moves in an ecosystem? | Matter cycles through an ecosystem, going from producers to the consumers who eat the producers and eventually to decomposers who change the matter into forms the producers can use, to start the cycle all over again. |
| True or false? "Matter is used up in an ecosystem." | False, it keeps cycling from one type of organism to another. |
| True or False? "Energy is used up in an ecosystem." | True, energy travels in a one way direction, and is eventually lost as heat from the different organisms as it travels up the food chain. |
| A series of steps in which organisms transfer energy by eating or being eaten is called a ___. | food chain |
| _______ show the one-way flow of energy through an ecosystem. | Food chains |
| Which way do arrows point in a food chain? | They point from the organism that is being eaten towards the organism that eats them. They show which way energy is being passed along in an ecosystem. |
| A ______ describes the complex feeding relationships among all organisms in an ecosystem, including the decomposers. | food web,  |
The picture below depicts a ____.,  | food chain, |
| The picture below depicts a ____., | food web, |
| Each step in a food chain or ecological pyramid is called a ____. | trophic level |
| The first trophic level in a food chain or ecological pyramid is made up of ____. | producers (autotrophs) |
| If all the plants in a field were determined to contain 10,000 calories of energy, how much energy would you expect to get by eating all the animals that feed on those plants in the field? | 1000 calories (remember the 10% rule) |
| If all the herbivores in an ecosystem had a biomass of 50,000 kg, what would you expect all of the carnivores at the next trophic level to weigh all together? | 5,000 kg (remember the 10% rule) |
| Why do ecological pyramids rarely have more than 4 trophic levels? | Energy usually runs out by the 4th trophic level because 90% is used up at each level and only 10% gets passed on. |
| The original source of energy that flows through an ecosystem comes from ____. | the sun |
| The total amount of living tissue in an ecosystem, expressed in kilograms, is called ____. | biomass |
| The changing of water from gas form (water vapor) to liquid form is called ____. | condensation |
| The changing of water from liquid form to gas form (water vapor) at temperatures below boiling is called ___. | evaporation |
| Evaporation from the surface of plant leaves is called ____. | Transpiration |
| When water condenses and then starts to fall as either rain or snow, these two forms of water can both be called ______. | precipitation |
| When organisms burn their food in the presence of oxygen, the two waste products are carbon dioxide and ___. | water vapor |
| Water that ends up deep below the ground is called ___. | ground water |
| Unlike energy, matter gets _______ within and between ecosystesms. | recycled |
| _______ is required by plants in order to make molecules like DNA and RNA plus an energy carrying molecule called ATP. | Phosphorus |
| Which two types of elements are the key ingredients in fertilizer, because plants need them to grow. | Nitrogen and phosphorus |
| The process by which bacteria convert nitrogen gas (N2) into ammonia (NH3) is called ____. | nitrogen fixation |
| The conversion of nitrogen from one form to another in the nitrogen cycle is carried out primarily by ___. | bacteria |
| Which type of plants help make soil more fertile because they can fix nitrogen out of the air and convert it into useable forms? | Legumes (they include peas, beans, lentils, peanuts, alfalfa. Legumes actually don't do the converting themselves, but have bacteria that grow in their root nodules that can fix nitrogen from the atmosphere and turn it into fertilizer) |
| A lake that receives a large input of a limiting nutrient, like nitrogen or phosphorus, can develop a(n) ____. | algal bloom |
| The rate at which producers create organic matter (by growing) in an ecosystem is called ____. | primary productivity |
| What is most likely to be a limiting nutrient in a freshwater pond? | phosphorus |
| If a nutrient is in such a short supply in an ecosystem that it affects the growth of organisms, it is called a(n) ___. | limiting nutrient |
| Aquatic ecosystems are most likely to receive heavy doses of limiting nutrients that can cause algal blooms from the runoff from ___. | fertilized fields (like farmland or golf courses) |
| Which gas is given off by decomposers as they decompose dead organisms? | carbon dioxide (because they are getting energy from the dead organisms through cellular respiration) |
| Carbon dioxide and water are ____ during photosynthesis. | required |
| Carbon dioxide and water are ___ during cellular respiration. | produced |
| Photosynthesis is pretty much the exact opposite process of ___. | cellular respiration (photosynthesis requires energy to make food from carbon dioxide and water while cellular respiration burns food using oxygen to produce carbon dioxide and water along with energy) |
| Where in the carbon cycle is carbon stored in a process that took millions of years to build up? | Carbon took millions of years to build up underground as fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas. Unfortunately, it is now being released back into the atmosphere quickly over the last two hundred years as we've started burning the fossil fuels for energy) |
| Why is carbon dioxide increasing in the atmosphere? | Fossil fuels containing carbon are being burned for energy (creating CO2) now-a-days. This has was not happening very much until the start of the industrial revolution. |
| What are 3 human activities most responsible for the recent increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere? | Burning fossil fuels, clearing forests by burning them, and industrial processes. |
| Climate is the average, year-to-year, conditions of ____ and ____ in a certain area. | temperature and precipitation |
| ______ is the average, year-to-year, conditions of temperature and precipitation in a certain area. | Climate |
| The natural trapping of heat energy by gases in the Earth’s atmosphere is known as ____. | the greenhouse effect,  |
| Name three greenhouse gases, starting with the one blamed for most of current global warming. | Carbon dioxide, methane, water vapor |
| What does this picture depict? (If you can't see it well, you probably didn't open up the flashcards as NON-JAVA), | The greenhouse effect, |
| Heat is moved away from the tropics by which two methods? | Wind and ocean currents |
| Wind and ocean currents are caused by the fact that warm fluids ____ and cool fluids _____. | rise, sink |
| The climate on the side of a mountain range getting hit by prevailing winds is ______ than the climate on the other side of the mountain range. | wetter,  |
What are these lines called?,  | lines of latitude, |
| The living things that help shape an ecosystem are known as _________. | biotic factors |
| The non-living things that help shape an ecosystem are known as _______. | abiotic factors |
| An organism's ______ is where it lives and includes both biotic and abiotic factors. | habitat |
| An organism's ____ is kind of like it's job, and includes the way in which an organism eats, finds shelter, and reproduces as well as the physical conditions required by the organism to survive. | niche, 
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| Two different species ______ share the same niche in the same habitat. | can't |
| Any necessity for life, such as water, nutrients, light, food, and space, are referred to as a _____. | resource |
| ______ occurs when organisms of the same or different species attempt to use an ecological resource in the same place at the same time. | Competition |
| The type of interaction where one organism captures and eats another organism is known as _____. | predation |
| The type of relationship in which two different species of organisms live closely together is called ____. | symbiosis,
|
| Name the three types of symbiotic relationships.,
| mutualism, commensalism, and parasitism |
| The type of symbiotic relationship in which both species benefit is called ____.,
| mutualism,
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| The type of symbiotic relationship in which one species benefits while the other species is neither helped nor harmed is called ___.,
| commensalism,
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| The type of symbiotic relationship in which one species benefits at the expense of the other is called ____.,
| parasitism,
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| Fleas, ticks, lice and tapeworms are examples of ____. | parasites,
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| The organism that a parasite lives on or in is called the ____. | host |
| The series of predictable changes that occur in an ecosystem as it ages is called ____. | ecological succession,  |
| The type of succession that starts from scratch (like on bare rock or ash) is called ____. | primary succession,  |
| The first species to populate an area that previously had no signs of life is called the ____. | pioneer species |
| The type of ecological succession that occurs after a forest fire, or when farmland is abandoned, is called _____ | secondary succession,  |
| The final community of organisms, after the ecosystem has gone through succession and become stabilized, is called the ____. | climax community |
| Climate conditions in a small area that differ significantly from the climate of the surrounding area are called ___. | microclimates |
| A biome is identified by its particular set of abiotic factors and its ___. | characteristic plant and animal communities |
| Palm trees and shrubs around a small pool of water in the middle of a barren desert is an example of ____. | a microclimate |
| What are the four abiotic factors used to classify aquatic ecosystems? | depth, flow, temperature, water chemistry |
| Where water flows quickly, there is a lot of dissolved _______ but little ____. | oxygen, plant life |
| _____ are free-floating organisms that live in both fresh and saltwater (usually unicellular). | Plankton,
|
| The _______ zone is the layer of the ocean that light penetrates | photic |
| The _______ zone is the layer of the ocean that light cannot penetrate. | aphotic (pronounced "A-fotic") |
What type of coastal ecosystem is pictured below?,  | Coral reef |
| The _______ zone refers to the sea floor. | benthic |
| If you were told that there were 350 deer in an area that covers 10 square kilometers, how would you calculate the population density of the deer? | You would divide the total population (in this case, 350 deer) by the area of land the population inhabits (in this case, 10 square kilometers) to get the population density (in this case, 35 deer per square kilometer) |
| The movement of organisms into a given area from another area is called ____. | immigration |
| When organisms leave a certain area, the movement is called ___. | emigration |
| For a population to grow, the ____ rate must be bigger than the ____ rate | birthrate must be larger than the deathrate |
| As resources in a population become less available, the population ___. | reaches carrying capacity |
| Under conditions of logistic growth, population size will rise and fall around an average point called the ____. | carrying capacity |
| Under ideal conditions with unlimited resources, a population will grow _____. | exponentially |
Which type of population growth does this graph show?,  | This graph shows exponential growth, which only happens under ideal conditions with unlimited space, food and no predators., |
Which type of population growth does this graph show?,  | Logistic growth, |
| At which point in the graph below is the population growth rate accelerating?, | Point A, |
| At which point in the graph below is the population growth rate the highest?, | The population growth "rate" is the highest at point B, |
| At which point in the graph below is the population growth rate starting to slow down?, | Point C, |
| At which point in the graph below is the population the highest?, | The population is the highest at point D (look along the y-axis), |
| At which point on the graph below is the population growth rate the lowest?, | The population growth rate is lowest at point D (notice that the population, even though it is at its highest, has stopped growing), |
| At which point in the graph below is the population at the carrying capacity?, | The population has reached the carrying capacity at point D. Remember, the carrying capacity is the maximum number of individuals that the environment can support., |
| What do we call factors that cause population growth to decrease? | Limiting factors |
| Give five examples of limiting factors. | Competition, predation, parasitism and disease, unnatural climate extremes, human disturbances |
| What is a density-dependent factor? | A density-dependent factor is a limiting factor that affects denser populations more than less dense populations. |
| What is a density-independent factor? | A density-independent factor is a limiting factor that affects dense populations just as much as less dense populations. |
| Give 3 examples of density-dependent factors. | Competition, predation, parasitism and disease |
| Give 2 examples of density-independent factors. | Unnatural climate extremes and human disturbances |
The age structure diagram on the right shows a ____ birth rate and a ____ death rate.,  | low birth rate and low death rate., |
| Which development in human history led to people settling down in one place like settlements, towns, and cities. | The move from hunter-gatherer to an agricultural-based society led to people being able to settle down in one place. |
| What is a disadvantage of suburban growth? | Growth of suburbs causes loss of farmlands and natural habitats. |
| Name three of Earth's resources on which humans and other species depend for survival? | Breathable air, drinkable water, and fertile soil |
| What are three types of human activities that affect the biosphere today. | Agriculture, industry and urban development |
| _________ forests are nonrenewable resources. | Old growth (these forests are considered to be nonrenewable because it takes hundreds and even thousands of years for forests to mature to the point where they are considered to be old growth) |
| ______ are considered to be nonrenewable resource because they take millions of years to form. | Fossil fuels |
| The practice of only taking a certain amount of a renewable resource each year so that the supply doesn't go down year after year is called ___. | sustainable development |
| Sulfur and nitrogen compounds in smog combine with water in clouds to form ___. | acid rain |
| The loss of surface soil by water and wind is called ___. | erosion |
| Which type of ecosystem helps purify water? | wetlands |
| The raising and feeding of fish in enclosed areas so they can be harvested later is called ____. | aquaculture |
| The number of different species on Earth is called _____. | species diversity |
| The sum total of the genetically based variety of different organisms on Earth is called ___. | biodiversity |
| The process whereby a nonbiodegradeable nondigestible substance (like DDT or mercury) becomes more and more concentrated in the flesh of animals higher and higher on the food chain is called _____. | biomagnification,  |
| The single greatest threat to biodiversity is _____. | habitat destruction |
| A foreign species that is introduced into an ecosystem and threatens the survival of species that are native to the area is called ___. | an invasive species.,  |
| Which level of the food chain is at the greatest risk from harmful substances that undergo biological magnification? | The highest levels (ex- top predators), |
