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21 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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bi- otic |
consists of living and once living biological com- ponents—plants, animals, and microbes |
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range of tolerance |
to variations in its physical and chemical environment, as shown in Figure 3-10 (p. 58). |
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limiting factors |
A variety of abiotic factors can affect the number of or- ganisms in a population. Sometimes one or more fac- tors, |
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limiting factor principle: |
Sometimes one or more fac- tors, known as limiting factors, are more important in regulating population growth than other factors |
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trophic level |
depending on its source of food or nutrients. |
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Producers |
sometimes called autotrophs |
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autotrophs |
make the nutrients they need from com- pounds and energy obtained from their environmen |
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photosynthesis |
which is the way energy enters most ecosystems |
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chemo- synthesis |
a process |
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heterotrophs |
hat can- not produce the nutrients they need through photo- synthesis or other processes and must obtain their nutrients by feeding on other organisms |
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herbivores |
are animals such as rabbits, grasshoppers, deer, and zooplankton that eat producers, mostly by feeding on green plants. |
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carnivores |
animals such as spiders, hyenas, birds, frogs, and some zooplankton-eating fish, all of which feed on the flesh of herbivores |
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higher-level consumers |
carnivores such as tigers, wolves, mice-eating snakes, hawks, and killer whales (orcas) that feed on the flesh of other carnivores. |
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Omnivores |
such as pigs, foxes, cockroaches, and humans, play dual roles by feeding on both plants and animals. |
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Decomposers |
primarily certain types of bacteria and fungi, are consumers that release nutrients from the dead bodies of plants and animals and return them to the soil, water, and air for reuse by producers. |
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food web |
organisms in most ecosystems form a complex network of interconnected food chains |
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biomass |
he dry weight of all or- ganic matter contained in its organisms. I |
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ecological efficiency |
he percentage of usable chemical energy transferred as biomass from one trophic level to the next |
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biomass |
the dry weight of all organic matter contained in its organisms |
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pyramid of energy flow |
he more trophic levels there are in a food chain or web, the greater is the cumulative loss of usable chemi- cal energy as it flows through the trophic levels. |
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net primary productivity |
he rate at which producers use photosynthesis to produce and store chemical energy minus the rate at which they use some of this stored chemical energy through aerobic respiration. |
