Chapter 5 Vocab Flashcards
Photosynthesis
Energy from the sun enters an ecosystem when organisms use sunlight to make sugar in a process
Producer
Producers are organisms capable of creating simple carbohydrates such as glucose, from gaseous carbon dioxide.
Consumer
Consumer in a food chain are living creatures that eat organisms from a different population.
Decomposer
Decomposers are organisms that break down dead or decaying organisms, they carry out decomposition, a process possible by only certain kingdoms, such as fungi.
Cellular Respiration
Cellular respiration is a set of metabolic reactions and processes that take place in the cells of organisms to convert chemical energy from oxygen molecules or nutrients into adenosine triphosphate, and then release waste products.
Food Chain
a hierarchical series of organisms each dependent on the next as a source of food.
Food Web
a system of interlocking and interdependent food chains.
Trophic Level
each of several hierarchical levels in an ecosystem, comprising organisms that share the same function in the food chain and the same nutritional relationship to the primary sources of energy.
Carbon Cycle
the series of processes by which carbon compounds are interconverted in the environment, involving the incorporation of carbon dioxide into living tissue by photosynthesis and its return to the atmosphere through respiration, the decay of dead organisms, and the burning of fossil fuels.
Nitrogen-Fixing Bacteria
Nitrogen fixation is a process by which molecular nitrogen in the air is converted into ammonia or related nitrogenous compounds in soil. Atmospheric nitrogen is molecular dinitrogen, a relatively nonreactive molecule that is metabolically useless to all but a few microorganisms.
Nitrogen Cycle
The nitrogen cycle is the biogeochemical cycle by which nitrogen is converted into multiple chemical forms as it circulates among atmosphere, terrestrial, and marine ecosystems.
Phosphorus Cycle
The phosphorus cycle is the biogeochemical cycle that describes the movement of phosphorus through the lithosphere, hydrosphere, and biosphere.
ecological succession
Ecological succession is the process of change in the species structure of an ecological community over time
Primary Succession
Primary succession is one of two types of biological and ecological succession of plant life, occurring in an environment in which new substrate devoid of vegetation and other organisms usually lacking soil, such as a lava flow or area left from retreated glacier, is deposited.
Secondary Succession
occurs in areas where an ecosystem has previously existed.
