Name: ______
Biology Chapter 22 Ecosystems and The Biosphere Vocabulary
1. Because autotrophs capture energy and use it to make organic molecules, they are called ______.
2. Most producers are photosynthetic, so they use solar energy to power the production of food. However, some autotrophic bacteria do not use sunlight as an energy source. These bacteria carry out ______, which means they produce carbohydrates by using energy from inorganic molecules.
3. ______productivity is the rate at which producers in an ecosystem capture energy.
4. Ecologists refer to the organic material in an ecosystem as ______. Producers add this to an ecosystem by making organic molecules.
5. Ecologists often measure the rate at which biomass accumulates, and this rate is called ______productivity. Net primary productivity is typically expressed in units of energy per unit area per year (kcal/m2/y) or in units of mass per unit area per year (g/m2/y). Net primary productivity equals gross primary productivity minus the rate of respiration in producers.
6. Ecologically speaking, heterotrophs are ______. They obtain energy by consuming organic molecules made by other organisms. Consumers can be grouped according to the type of food they eat.
7. ______eat producers. An antelope that eats grass is a herbivore. So are the minute zooplankton that feed on phytoplankton floating in oceans and lakes.
8. ______eat other consumers. Lions, bald eagles, cobras, and praying mantises are examples of carnivores.
9. ______eat both producers and consumers. The grizzly bear, whose diet ranges from berries to salmon, is an omnivore.
10. ______are consumers that feed on the “garbage” of an ecosystem, such as organisms that have recently died, fallen leaves and branches, and animal wastes.
11. ______cause decay by breaking down the complex molecules in dead tissues and wastes into simpler molecules.
12. An organism’s ______indicates the organism’s position in the sequence of energy transfers. For example, all producers belong to the first trophic level. Herbivores belong to the second trophic level, and the predators of herbivores belong to the third level.
13. A ______is a single pathway of feeding relationships among organisms in an ecosystem that results in energy transfer.
14. Many food chains interlink, and a diagram of the feeding relationships among all the organisms in an ecosystem would resemble a web. For this reason, the interrelated food chains in an ecosystem are called a ______.
15. Each substance travels through a ______cycle, moving from the abiotic portion of the environment, such as the atmosphere, into living things, and back again.
16. Water in the soil or in underground formations of porous rock is known as ______.
17. The movement of water between these various reservoirs, known as the ______cycle.
18. At least 90 percent of the water that evaporates from terrestrial ecosystems passes through plants in a process
called ______.
19. Together, photosynthesis and cellular respiration form the basis of the ______cycle.
20. All organisms need nitrogen to make proteins and nucleic acids. The complex pathway that nitrogen follows within an ecosystem is called the ______cycle.
21. The process of converting nitrogen gas to nitrate is called ______. Organisms rely on the actions of bacteria that are able to transform nitrogen gas into a usable form.
22. Separate groups of ______convert nitrogen gas into ammonia, then nitrite, and then nitrate, which plants can use.
23. Decomposers break down the corpses and wastes of organisms and release the nitrogen they contain as ammonia. This process is known as ______.
24. Bacteria in the soil take up ammonia and oxidize it into nitrites, NO2-, and nitrates, NO3-. This process, called ______, is carried out by bacteria. The erosion of nitraterich rocks also releases nitrates into an ecosystem. Plants use nitrates to form amino acids.
25. Nitrogen is returned to the atmosphere through ______. Denitrification occurs when anaerobic bacteria break down nitrates and release nitrogen gas back into the atmosphere.