Midterm 1 Material Flashcards
(173 cards)
1
Q
What is ecosystem ecology?
A
Is the study of the flow of energy and materials and matter in between, and out of an ecosystem
2
Q
Do ecosystems have size and boundaries?
A
Yes
3
Q
What are the state factors?
A
Cl, O, R, P , T
Climate
Organisms
Relief
Parent material
Time
4
Q
Why are the state factors important?
A
There are what cause ecosystem variation
5
Q
How does climate impact ecosystems?
A
they determine the global distribution of biomes
6
Q
How do organisms impact ecosystems?
A
The organisms and potential organisms are what drive ecosystem processes
7
Q
Can their be abiotic ecosystem processes? What does more processes, biotic or abiotic?
A
Yes, degradation due to UV light from sun, but biotic processes are more common
8
Q
How does relief impact ecosystems?
A
influences state of ecosystem by influencing local variation in ecosystems, for ex: at top of hill water will flow off and at bottom of hill water will pool. Soil will act similarly.
9
Q
How does parent material influence ecosystems?
A
It influences the rate of soil formation and type of nutrients in the soil.
For ex: granite versus basalt, the minerals in granite rock tend to be lighter (like quartz), the minerals in basalt are dark so that influences the nutrient availability to plants.
10
Q
How does time effect ecosystems?
A
It can effect development of soil (more time, more pedogenesis) and successional processes of plants and recovery after disruption to an ecosystem.
11
Q
Why do we care about causes in ecosystem variation?
A
Because we can predict how the system will react to disturbances and how changes in the state factors will cause this
12
Q
How does phosphorus availability change over time in an ecosystem?
A
As soil develops, all types of phosphorus becomes less available in the soil
13
Q
What is a primary source of phosphorus?
A
Its rock minerals that are weathering into soil
14
Q
What is occluded phosphorus?
A
is phosphorus that binds to soil minerals tightly so that it’s not available to anything
15
Q
What is non occluded phosphorus?
A
is free or available phopshorus
16
Q
What is organic phosphorus?
A
Is phosphorus that is put in plant material (litter or trees), is an organic form of phosphorus.
17
Q
What types of soils are in tropical soils?
A
They have soils like ultisols and oxisols, these are soils that ar ehighly weathered (have experienced more pedogenesis)
18
Q
What happens to the Nitrogen amount as ecosystems develop?
A
Early ecosystem- no nitrogen (as nitrogen needs to be fixed to be available)
Mid ecosystem- High amounts of nitrogen
Late ecosystems- nitrogen depletes
19
Q
How does carbon amounts change as ecosystems develop?
A
Early ecosystem- low
mid- high
late- lowers
20
Q
What limits temperate (old) ecosystems?
A
Nitrogen, as the ecosystem gets olds, the nitrogen declines and the carbon availabilyt depletes
21
Q
How do available phosphorus amounts change as ecosystems develop?
A
it stars off as nothing, mid way it increases, and then reduces
22
Q
Why do Nitrogen, phopshorus, and carbon availability over time matter?
A
To know how the system will respond if you add N, C, P for ex: you add nitrogen to soil that’s limited in nitrogen will it overload?
Want to know how it respond to human management
23
Q
What are pools?
A
is amount of nutrients there
24
Q
What are fluxes?
A
Is the movement of nutrients
25
What are ecosystem processes?
flows and flux of matter and energy in an ecosystem
26
What three things are common in ecosystem processes?
Inputs
Output/losses
Transformations
27
What are some inputs? (name 6)
Human input
Erosion
Atmospheric deposition
fixation (like nitrogen fixation)
leaching
weathering
28
What are 6 outputs?
Respiration
Leaching
volatilization
absorption
transport away
transform to a resistant form
29
What are the four types of transformations?
Organic to inorganic (glucose to CO2)
Inorganic to organic (Nh4 to amino acid)
Oxidized to reduced (Co2 to methane)
Reduced to oxidized (Nh4+ to NO3-)
30
What are the two types of research?
Empirical- is what you measure, regards data collection and observation, to find patterns
Mechanistic- Having a sense of overall function of the data, is predictions based on empirical research
31
Why is empirical research important?
Because you need data to create models for ecosystems
32
Can the walker syers model indicate the availabilty ove rother nutrients?
Yes, you could determine the sate of the environment and then find the amount of another nutrients at that state of ecosystem development.
33
In the tropics what is the minerals charge? How does that make them hold onto phosphate?
Has a positive charge, makes them hold onto PO4- .
34
What did the prof do in hawaii to recreate the walker syers model but for nitrogen and carbon?
She measures multiple diff areas with the only variability in soil being age to find out why the nutrient availability was leading to varying plant production.
35
What are the two independent state factors?
time and parent material
36
What is climate?
the average weather over 30 years
37
What five things effect climate?
Latitude
Altitude
Vegetation
Humans
Geology
38
How does latitude effect climate?
They form 5 basic climate types like tropical, dry, temperate, continental, and polar, through the formation of wind cells and differing exposure to light
39
How does altitude effect climate in terms of temperature?
As you increase in elevation you decrease in temp, because air is thinner so fewer collisions between them reradiates heat
40
How is the altitude effect similar to latitude?
As you move at differing latitudes you get different ecosystems at differing elevations (polar ice, tundra, taiga, temperate, tropical), altitude works same way further from equator.
41
How does altitude effect climate through rainshadows?
Most warm air blows on shore, the air rises and cools causing a lot of rain , than dry air descends promoting evaporation (rain shadows)
42
How does Hawaii get effected by rainshadows?
Wind comes up the mountains of mauna loa and mauna kea causing tons of ppt before and then a rainshadow after
43
Why is there many invasive flowers built in resorts on hawaii?
Because resorts are built on dry side of hawaii so they plant the flowers on wet side on dry side to attract tourists
44
How does elevation effect the ecosites you see in hawaii?
High elevation results in tundra, tundra ecosites on top of mauna loa and kea
45
How does vegetation influence climate? (name 4 ways)
albedo, rugosity, evapotranspiration, shade
46
How does vegetation influence climate through albedo?
More vegetation equals less albedo as it causes more absorption of heat.
Grassland crops, sand, forests, soil/exposed ground, has reflection values of 10-30%
47
How does vegetation influence climate through rugosity?
Over rougher terrain (more vegation) you get different wind patterns, flat terrain less vegetation you get smoother air flow.
48
Why in grasslands is grass greener under canopy of trees?
Hydraulic lift, birds on canopy cause fertilizer, shade results in less evapotranspiration
49
How does rainforest vegetation effect climate?
low albedo resulting in low surface temp, evapotranspiration results in high latent heat loss, low sensible heat loss, high ppt rates
50
How does pasture vegetation effect climate?
High albedo so high surface temps, high sensible heat loss, low latent heat loss as low evapotranspiration, less ppt
51
How do humans effect climate systematically?
Have drivers (increased co2) which effects the natural system (increased co2 warms atmosphere) which then results in feedbacks (increased temps) with then effects human system (increased co2 for energy to turn fans).
52
How does airflow get effects by humans?
Buildings alter airflow, airflow gets altered by climbing up buildings.
53
How does albedo get effected by humans?
Buildigns, asborn a lot of sunlight, asphalt, clear cutting
54
How does evapotranspiration and shade get effected by humans?
clear cutting
55
How does geology affect climate?
color
Composition (carbonate cycle and roughness)
soil development (amount of carbon in soil)
56
How does the carbonate cycle effect climate?
volcanism can break down carbonate, spew it into the air, warm the air, marine organisms release carbon into air while building calcium carbonate, carbon can be uptaken by rocks through weathering (cools atmosphere)
57
How does soil development effect climate?
effects it large scale as it determines vegetation and determines carbon sequestration.
58
What is latent heat versus sensible heat?
Latent heat triggers a phase change (is heat of evaporation)
Sensible heat is is heat that increases temp
59
What need mor energy, a phase change or increasing temp?
A phase change
60
What is a boundary layer?
is thickness of turbulent versus smooth layer, roughness determines the thickness of the layers we get.
61
Where is most of earths water stored?
In oceans at (96.5%)
62
How much of earths water is freshwater?
2.5%
63
Where is earth's freshwater stored?
Groundwater (30.1%) and glaciers and ice caps (68.7%), and surface freshwater (1.2%)
64
Where is earth's surface freshwater stored?
Ground ice and permafrost (69%) and lakes (20.9%)
65
What are the 10 fluxes in the water cycle?
Evaporation, transpiration, sublimation, condensation, transportation, precipitation, deposition, infiltration/percolation, flow, plant uptake
66
Where is water held in wetlands?
in pools in the ground
67
Where is water held in tropical soils?
is held in vegetation
68
Why is water held above ground in tropical forests?
Because soils are low in organic matter, organic matter holds water like a sponge, wetlands have a lot of organic matter in soil so it gets held in soil.
69
Where is water held in deserts?
in groundwater and vegetation (but little amounts)
70
Why do water fluxes matter?
to able to see how much water leaves system and enters it
71
What happens during transpiration?
Water comes out of leaves through stomata, water is in vapor form in the mesophyll cells in leaf, heat causes the water to leave the mesophyll cells and exit the leaf through the stomata.
72
Why does the boundary layer (layer above the leaf) matter?
It's still air at surface of leaf that will slow transpiration, it stops plant from drying out too quickly.
73
How do plants alter their boundary layers?
Change there leaves surface rugosity in order to determine turbulence of boundary layer and therefore the amount of transpiration that will occur
74
What do the thick cuticles of plants do?
they slow the exchange of carbon dioxide for water vapour
75
Whats the danger in transpiration for a plant?
only way to get co2 in is to leave water, so in dry conditions if the only way the plant get co2 is losing water, so if there's a huge water vapor difference, then a lot of water exits plant
76
What's the difference between C3, C4, and CAM?
C3- is in most plants (rice, trees, shrubs) means that the first molecules that carbon gets fixed into in plant is a three carbon molecule.
C4- In corn, means that the first molecule carbon gets fixed into is a 4 carbon molecules
So 4 carbons more, C4 uses carbon mor efficiently and loses less water
In CAM (pineaplles), co2 enters plant at night and becomes an acid, stops plant from losing water by opening stomata during the day
77
Why do we care about C3,C4, and CAM plants?
The distribution of the types of photosynthesis shows where the plants are dominant.
78
Where do C4 plants dominate?
in more arid, hot&dry areas as they use carbonate more efficiently
79
What's the benefit of making all plants have a CAM type of photosynthesis?
They use less water, is more resources efficient
80
What is evapotranspiration?
Is evaporation and transpiration combined
81
What factors effect evapotranspiration (7 factors)
atmospheric humidity, temperature, types of plant, soil type, availability of water (is it in pools or ground water), ions in water, wind
82
Why does it matter to know evapotranspiration values in ecosystem?
Tells you how much water your losing in your water budget in an ecosystem
83
What is crown drip?
is water that falls of edges off canopy of tree
84
What is throughfall?
Water that falls straight through plant
85
What is stemflow?F
vertical flow of water along the trunk of the plant
86
How do you collect bulk ppt and throughfall?
It gets funneled into a container thats placed under the tree
87
How do you collect stem flow?
Put collar around tree, collectes flow and then gets funneled into a bucket.
88
Why would you want to collect stemflow, throughfall, and crowndrip?
Want to know how much water is there and where its going, and the chemical composition of each type. Sometimes the nutrients (pollen, organic matter) on the laves will fall on foliage below or there can be dust, soot, microplastics, and dead bugs etc.
89
Why do you want to plant plants on the drip line of crown drip?
because you want plants to feed off crown drip and also want to water there to irrigate the trees roots
90
What are other ways of knowing?
Indigenous ways of knowing which we understand plants with all four aspects of our being (mind, body, emotion, and spirit). Western thinking only considers two (mind and body).
91
What is soil?
a matrix of mineral and organic materials with porosity and structure, interacting with atmosphere and water and supports life
92
Soil is composed of what?
50% air and water, 50% solid (45% mineral matter +5% organic matter)
93
What is soil physics?
is the study of movement of water in soil an fluxes of energy/heat
94
What controls water movement in soil? (4 things)
Texture, structure, heat/temp, plants
95
What makes of soils texture?
The proportions of sand, silt, and clay in the soil
96
Why do we care about the texture of the soil?
They create pore space and structure
97
What is better for plants? Coarse textured of fine texture soil?
Coarse textured soil has more water drainage whereas the fine textured soil has more water retained, so fine textured soil
98
What does pore space and texture influence?
water movement
Oxygen
Soil bulk density
occurrence of Landslides/soil movement
99
What is a well structured soil? What happens when you don't have one?
A well structured soil has air, water, and nutrients store din pores, when it becomes poorly structured water gets logged, and water and nutrients move slowly down the profile with air being excluded, pores get smaller
100
Why do you want a well structured soil? What are consequences of a poor structured soil?
It inhibits plant growth by overwatering, roots need oxygen otherwise can't respire
101
What's bulk density?
Is the amount of pore space we have and looks at mass per volume, for example: a brick is gonna have a higher bulk density because it has less pore space and therefore more mass per volume. Is particle density plus pore space.
102
How do you determine bulk density?
Take core, pound into ground, take intact core sample out, dry it out and then weight it.
103
Why do we want to know about bulk density?
Because it allows us to know that the pore size is small and level of compactness as they don't grow plants well if super compact.
104
Why does tilling increase compaction of soils?
Because as it breaks up big chunks of rock, the small bits then fall to bottom and compact forming a very bulk dense layer, this also results in a layer of iron concretion sometimes.
105
What are the layers in a compacted soil?
have crust, then tightly packed soil, then blocky soil, then deep compaction
106
What three things do compact soils affect?
Water movement
Oxygen
Root growth
107
How does compaction of soil effect oxygen, water movement, and root growth?
too few pores results in in too much water, less oxygen, and therefore root growth
108
What are the six soil structures?
Granular, blocky, prismatic, columnar, platy, single grained
109
How does soil structure get damaged? Why is this very bad?
tilling, this is bas because soil structure takes years and years to build so it's not quickly renewable
110
What is aggregate hierarchy?
That particles (sand/silt/clay) get glued together to become big things, to become even bigger things.
111
Describe the process of microaggregates forming into macroaggregates?
Microaggregates are formed by particular organic compounds being glued together with minerals, the glue is a byproduct of bacteria
These microaggregates get glued together by fungi to make macroaggregates
112
Why do we care about aggregate hierarchy? Why do we want to know amount of micro to macro aggregates?
-Tells you about the amount of fungi that are there
- Tells you something about how healthy the microbial system is
-Helps you know how well things will grow in soil
113
How do pores and structure effect soil movement (ie erosion, landslides)
if soil isn't glued well it'll erode.
Landslides will happen when you overload the pore space in a soil with fairly large pores.
114
How does soil temperature change with depth over time?
-Deeper soils are warmer and stay consistent over long periods of time
- Shallower soils fluctuate alot over time in temperature
115
Why do shallower soils fluctuate so much in temp?
Has heat exchange with atmosphere so seasonal and diurnal changes effect it.
116
Why is soil temperature important?
Allows us to see how fluctuations in temperature effects organisms at the surface
117
What is the effect of water on soil temperature?
Water buffers changes in soil temperature
118
What is loam?
Is the only soil that is not predominantly sand, silt, or clay, contains humus a lot
119
What are the three types of nutrient in soil? What do they do?
Primary nutrients, secondary nutrients, micro nutrients, they are elements needed for plants
120
Whats the difference between micro and macro nutrients?
Macro- plants need more of it
Micro- plants don't need as much
121
Where does nitrogen come from for plants?
They are fixed from the atmosphere by bacteria
122
Where do nutrients in general come from?
From rocks, atmosphere, water, fertilizer
123
If an atmosphere has too much nitrogen and sulfate what happens?
it comes down as acid rain
124
How does nutrients in soil come from rock?
Through pedogenensis, parent rock is weathered and fragments move upwards, organic material accumulates, and they create soil with nutrients
125
What's the difference between an alfisol and spodisol?
Alfisol and spodisol have differing ph's , the differences in colors also indicate the different environments they're from.
The organic layer in alfisols is thick compared to spodisol.
Spodosols have oxidized iron in them.
126
What is white horizon in spodisols?
Is the zone of elluviation, organic acid leaches through and accumlates in b horizon
127
What's the difference between secondary minerals and primary minerals?
secondary minerals have changed mineral structures (are recycled)
128
What are characteristics of the oldest soil layer?
most highly weathered, most secondary minerals
129
What are the characteristics of the youngest soil layer?
weathered, many secondary minerals
130
What are the characteristics of rotten rock?
has some primary minerals, is weathering into secondary
131
What are the characteristics of parent rock?
composed of primary minerals, hasn't really gone through pedogenesis
132
What two things do soil/rock minerals do?
| for soil*
they are a source of micro and macro nutrients (except N)
They control loss and availability of nutrients via CEC
133
How are different rock minerals nutrient sources?
Quartz gives silicon and oxygen
Biotite- gives many nutrients such as aluminum
Feldspar- gives potassium, sodium etc
134
If rocks have a lot of biotite what does that indicate of the soil it'll form?
It'll be really acidic as biotite has aluminum which will make it acidic
135
What is the impact of limestone acting as a parent material?
Have a lot more calcium, will make soil more basic as it weathers, will weather very fast
136
Why are clay minerals so important?
Because they're negatively charged so they hold cations
137
What is cation exchange capacity?
Is the total quantity of negative surface charges in the soil, it is measured by how many cations it can hold
138
What does CEC determine of a soil?
plant nutrient availability and retention
139
What cations do we want attached to our soil? What do we not want?
Want base ions (nutrients for soil), don't want acid cations
140
What is CEC measured in?
milliequivalents of negative charge per 100 g of soil
141
How does clay content determine CEC?
More clay results in higher CEC, less clay more sand results in lower CEC
142
If a soil is clay heavy, does that mean it has a high CEC?
no differing clays have differing CEC's
143
Why are differing clays have differing CEC's?
Because the clays have differing structures, for example: smectite expands it's layers resulting in more places to hold cations but mica does not expand as it has potassium holding layers together. Kaolinite and mica have differing CEC's as kaolinite has only one +Al to one silicon where as the other has two.
144
What does soil pH effect?
affects nutrient availability, solubility, and effects plants and biota
Differing nutrients are more available in diff ph's, macronutrients are abundant at high ph, micronutrients are abundant as low ph.
145
What is the optimal ph for soils?
Around neutral
146
What is salinity?
The amount of salt in soil
147
Where does salinity come from?
Release of salts from weathering of primary minerals
high does of chemical fertilizers
irrigation water
148
What is salinization?
When salt is too much and overloads system forming salt crust.
149
How does soil ph effect plant biota?
indirectly by ph, acidic soil bad as it take space for nutrients, hydrogen can also get in plants roots and then needs to be pumped out and expends energy
150
Why is salinization a big problem?
you can't just wash the salt away as the soil won't drain (water just evaporates leaving salt), hard to reverse
151
What is a big consequence of salnization?
plants exploding
152
What controls nutrient availability in soil?
Weathering, ph, vegetation, soil moisture, temperature, carbon content
153
Where do nutrients in soil come from (chemically)? Given an example of each?
They come from above, beside, and below
Above- N nitrogen fixation
Beside- water- ie sulfur
Below- from parent material, for ex aluminum from mica
154
Does organic matter increase CEC?
yes
155
In one gram of of soil, how many bacterial cells are there? Species of bacteria?
over 1,000,000 bacterial cells, over 16,000 species of bacteria
156
Soil organisms are involved in what aspects of soil functioning?
all aspects including (soil fertility, structure/aggregation, organic matter formation, residue decomposition, nutrient cycling/availability, nitrate leaching, and soil fertility).
157
What are soil animals important for?
shredding (decomposition) and mixing (aeration)
158
What are soil mesofauna important for?
predation and pathogenesis
159
What are soil microbes important for?
Nutrient cycling, pathogenesis/disease, chemical breakdown and carbon transformation
160
161
Where is most of the world’s carbon?
Is accumulated in high altitudes, don’t see much carbon in desert regions
162
What are the global carbon pools from biggest to smallest?
continental crusts and upper mantle
ocean
soils and vegetation
permafrost
surface ocean
atmosphere
emissions
land use and change
163
Why do we care about carbon pools, fluxes and cycles?
Because we want to see the effects of human changes on it for example fossil fuel burning
164
What are the inputs of the carbon cycle?
Primary productivity, secondary productivity
165
What is the definition of humic substances?
A subset of the total SOM, no longer recognizable as biologically derived
166
What are the two main types of humic substances?
humic acids and fulvic acids
167
What are the two theories of humification?
lignin degradation theory
Polyphenol condensation theory
168
What’s special about carbon over silica?
makes many diff compounds and makes 4 bonds
169
What are the three traits of humic substances?
Large size
High in nitrogen
Variety of functional/reactive groups with an overall negative charge
170
Why do wetlands have such high carbon storage?
because it’s very wet and cool so carbon doesn’t degrade
171
How soil carbon formed?
litter enters microbial bodies which becomes decomposed
172
What is the lignin degradation theory?
Says that lignins have a lot of rings and so rings are cut up on outside by microbes, this creates humus
173
what is the polyphenol condensation theory?
that various microbial products all glue together to make humus
