APES Ch. 5 Practice Quiz – Flashcards
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The sum total of the planet's living organisms and abiotic systems is ________.
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the biosphere
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When considering the phosphorus cycle, plants obtain most of their phosphorus from _______.
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rocks and soils
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Which of the following best characterizes the factors that have contributed to the "dead zone" in the waters of the Chesapeake Bay for the past few decades?
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fertilizer runoff from farms, animal manure, and stormwater runoff
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A metapopulation is ______________.
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a network of separate populations with some interbreeding between them
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The largest reservoir of carbon in the carbon cycle is in sedimentary rock that may take hundreds of millions of years to return to the living portion of the cycle. What is the second largest reservoir of carbon?
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the oceans
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What does the term emergent properties describe?
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characteristics that are not evident in the system's individual components but are evident only by looking at the whole operating system
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How do plants contribute to the water cycle?
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through the process of transpiration
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Ecosystems that convert solar energy to biomass rapidly ________.
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are said to have high primary productivity
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The process that makes nitrogen available to plants by mutualistic and free-living bacteria is called __________.
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nitrogen fixation
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Positive feedback loops _______.
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are more common in natural systems altered by human actions
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The structural sphere of Earth that is best described as the rocks and sediment is the ______.
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lithosphere
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A landscape ecologist would be most likely to study ______.
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the movement of nutrients from alpine grassland on a mountain through the temperate deciduous forest at the lower elevations into the tropical rain forest at the base
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Nitrogen availability is often a limiting factor in plant growth. Nitrogen tends to be scarce because __________.
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Nitrogen gas (N2) is so stable that only a few organisms are capable of turning it into nitrogen that can be used for living things.
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Which best describes how energy and nutrients work in an ecosystem?
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energy flows through an ecosystem; nutrients cycle
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In the carbon cycle, carbon moves from the atmosphere into the living portion of the cycle through ______.
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photosynthesis
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Which of the following would destabilize an ecosystem?
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positive feedback loops
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A contributing factor in the process of eutrophication is ______.
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nitrogen and phosphate pollution
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Which of the following would be considered an emergent property of a tree?
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its role as a habitat for other organisms in the ecosystem
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Net primary production in an ecosystem can be calculated by ______.
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subtracting respiration from gross primary production
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A(n) _____ is an example of an ecosystem with high primary productivity while a _____ is an example of an ecosystem with low primary productivity.
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algal bed, desert
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_____ is an example of a resource provided by our ecosystems, while _____ is(are) an example of a service provided by our ecosystems.
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Water, water cycling
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Which of the following statements about dead zones is correct?
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Dead zones are reversible if nutrient pollution input to a system is reduced.
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Some of the most ancient water on Earth can be found in ________.
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aquifers
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Which of the following processes was responsible for humans increasing nitrogen's flux from the atmosphere to Earth's surface?
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the Haber-Bosch process
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All of the following are considered reservoirs of carbon except ______.
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phosphorus sediments
