Chapter 56 Ecosystems

Question 1

How do nutrients move through the environment? Is it one way or cyclic? Are nutrients lost from the ecosystems?

Answer 1

• nutrients are cycled within an ecosystem
• nutrients are not lost from global ecosystem
• can become unavailable for long periods of time

Question 2

What is a biogeochemical cycle?

Answer 2

• describes how a specific nutrient moves among environmental reservoirs
• water cycle, phosphorus, carbon,nitrogen

Question 3

Know the reservoirs for each nutrient and what each nutrient is used for? Water carbon phosphorus nitrogen

Answer 3

Water: ocean, used for drinking water
Carbón: the CO2 in atmosphere, used for organic molecules like carbs lipids nuclei acids
Phosphorus: sediment/rocks, makes atp backs one of nucleic acids
Nitrogen: atmosphere, nucleotides in DNA and amino acids

Question 4

What is eutrophication?

Answer 4

• over abundance of a much needed nutrients
• ex: too much phosphate results in a population explosion of algae. Reduced o2 content in water and threatens the survival of other species in lake

Question 5

What is the outcome of increasing the amount of chemical in an ecosystem where that chemical was originally found in small amounts or not found at all? Red tide

Answer 5

• it pollutes the environment and harms wild life
• red tide: the over abundance of a chemical causes dinoflagellates to become abundant and they produce toxins and kill fishes make marine mammals ill and are deadly to humans

Question 6

What are green house gases and how do they contribute to the green house effect?

Answer 6

• atmospheric gases that slow the movement of heat from Earth to space warming the earth
• CO2 and NO2
• too much greenhouse gases increases glacial melting which causes sea levels to rise. Alters wind and weather patterns (hurricanes, tornadoes, shift in rain and snow distributions)

Question 7

What is climate change? Is it natural? Is the rate of change the same as it’s been in the past? Is this a problem? What is the correlation between temperature and the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere

Answer 7

• long term change of weather pattens
• climate change naturally occurs slowly
• no it used to be slow and now it’s increasing rapidly
• it’s a problem because organisms will not be able to adapt to the environment
• high CO2 = warm interglacial periods
• low CO2 = cool Gladis periods
• rising CO2 = rising global temperature

Question 8

What is a pollutant?

Answer 8

-anything in an environment that is in higher amounts than normal. Can be natural

Question 9

What are the effects of global warming on the ecosystem?

Answer 9

-

Question 10

What are the effects of global warming on organisms?

Answer 10

-they can’t adapt fast enough, could go extinct

Question 11

What causes the depletion of the ozone layer? How does this affect organisms?

Answer 11

• CFC: chlorofluorocarbons (aerosol propellants, coolants, styrofoam production) they interact with ice crystals & UV light in atmosphere, it degrades the ozone makes holes in the ozone
• the ozone protects against UV radiation
• causes skin cancer, cataracts, reduces rate of photosynthesis, crop yields decline less O2 production

Question 12

What causes acid rain? How does this affect organisms both indirectly and directly

Answer 12

• combination of air and water pollution
• direct: damages stone structure/statues, contact with tissue irritant, decline in forests, leaves damaged decrease in photosynthesis, dead forests, loss of aquatic species
• indirect: leaches minerals and nutrients from plants, reduced calcium in ecosystem,