Term
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Definition
| the sum of all organisms and abiotic factors living in an area |
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Term
| law of conservation of mass |
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Definition
| matter can not be created or destroyed |
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Term
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Definition
| the trophic level that supports all other trophic level (autotrophs) |
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Term
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Definition
| herbivores, eat plants and other primary producers |
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Term
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Definition
| carnivores that eat herbivores |
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Term
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Definition
| carnivores that eat other carnivores |
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Term
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Definition
| consume detritus to get energy |
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Term
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Definition
| nonliving organic material (dead plants and animals) |
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Term
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Definition
| the amount of light energy converted to chemical energy (organic compounds) by autotrophs during a given time period |
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Term
| gross primary production (GPP) |
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Definition
| total primary production in an ecosystem |
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Term
| net primary production (NPP) |
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Definition
| is equal to gross primary production minus the energy used by the primary producers for respiration |
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Term
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Definition
| the element that must be added for production to increase |
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Term
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Definition
| bacteria and algae increase exponentially in a body of water reducing available light and using available nutrients, until all but the most hardy species are dead |
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Term
| actual evapotranspiration |
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Definition
| the anual amount of water transpired by plants and evaporated from a landscape |
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Term
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Definition
| the amount of chemical energy in consumers' food that is converted to their own new biomass during a given time period |
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Term
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Definition
| the percentage of energy stored in assimilated food that is not used for respiration |
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Term
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Definition
| the percentage of production transferred from one trophic level to the next |
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Term
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Definition
| the proportion of a species standing crop to its production |
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Term
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Definition
| terrestrial herbivores are held in check by a variety of factors |
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Term
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Definition
| nutrient cycles that involve both biotic and abiotic components |
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Term
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Definition
| the amount of added nutrient that can be absorbed by plants w/o damaging ecosystem integrity |
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Term
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Definition
| when a toxin or energy blip becomes more concentrated in successive trophic levels of a food web |
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Term
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Definition
| a process in which CO2 watervapor and other greenhouse gases absorb infrared radiation the Earth emits and reflects some of it back to the Earth |
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