CH 3 key terms

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Across
  1. 2. organism such as a plant that makes the food it needs from compounds in soil, carbon dioxide, air, and water by using the energy of sunlight.
  2. 4. all of the gaseous, liquid, and solid water on or near Earth’s surface.
  3. 7. cycle that collects, purifies, and distributes Earth’s fixed supply of water.
  4. 8. cyclic movement of carbon in different chemical forms from the environment to organisms and then back to the environment.
  5. 10. layer of the atmosphere between the troposphere and the more distant mesosphere, thermosphere, and exosphere; contains the ozone layer.
  6. 13. consumer that feeds on both primary and secondary consumers
  7. 18. process in which producers change radiant energy (sunlight) into chemical energy. Harnessing the energy of light allows producers to convert inorganic molecules of carbon dioxide and water into organic molecules such as glucose.
  8. 19. complex process that uses oxygen and glucose to produce energy and occurs in the cells of most living organisms. Carbon dioxide and water are the byproducts of this reaction.
  9. 21. animal that feeds mostly on other animals.
  10. 22. zone of Earth where life is found. It consists of parts of the atmosphere (the troposphere), hydrosphere (mostly surface water and groundwater), and lithosphere (mostly soil and surface rocks and sediments on the bottoms of oceans and other bodies of water).
  11. 23. earth’s core, mantle, and crust—all the material above and below the surface of Earth that forms the planet’s mass
  12. 24. sequence of organisms in which each organism is a source of nutrients or energy for the next level of organisms.
  13. 26. precipitation that seeps into the soil and collects in an aquifer
  14. 28. rate at which producers use photosynthesis to produce and store chemical energy minus the rate at which they use some of this stored chemical energy through cellular respiration. It is used to measure the rate at which producers make chemical energy potentially available to the consumers in an ecosystem.
  15. 30. precipitation that falls on land and flows over land surfaces into streams, rivers, lakes, wetlands, and the ocean, where it can evaporate and repeat the hydrologic cycle.
  16. 31. cyclic movement of phosphorus through water, Earth’s crust, and living organisms.
  17. 32. period of relatively stable climate and other environmental conditions; it has allowed the human population to grow, develop agriculture, and take over a large and growing share of Earth’s land and other resources.
  18. 33. porous water-saturated layers of sand, gravel, or bedrock in which groundwater collects.
  19. 34. envelope of gases surrounding Earth
  20. 35. organism that eats mostly green plants or algae.
Down
  1. 1. rate at which an ecosystem’s producers convert radiant energy into chemical energy.
  2. 3. form of cellular respiration in which some decomposers get the energy they need through the breakdown of glucose (or other nutrients) in the absence of oxygen.
  3. 5. consumers that get their nutrients by breaking down nonliving organic matter such as leaf litter, fallen trees, and dead animals. In the process of obtaining their own food, these organisms release nutrients from their waste that return nutrients to the soil and water.
  4. 6. animal that feeds on primary consumers
  5. 9. continual movement of the elements and compounds that make up nutrients through air, water, soil, rock, and living organisms within ecosystems. The process is driven by energy from the sun and by Earth’s gravity.
  6. 11. new epoch in which humans have become major agents of change in the functioning of Earth’s life-support system as their ecological footprints have spread over Earth.
  7. 12. lowest layer of the atmosphere and the only layer suitable for terrestrial life. Weather occurs in this layer.
  8. 14. organism that cannot produce its own food and gets its organic nutrients by feeding on the tissues of producers or of other consumers;
  9. 15. designation for an organism based on its methods of making or finding food and feeding behavior.
  10. 16. consumer organism that feeds on detritus— freshly dead organisms.
  11. 17. process in which solar energy warms the troposphere as it reflects from Earth’s surface (geosphere) and interacts with carbon dioxide, methane, water vapor (from the hydrosphere and biosphere), and other greenhouse gases (atmosphere). This warms Earth and supports life.
  12. 20. animal that can use both plants and other animals as food sources.
  13. 25. organism that eats mostly green plants or algae.
  14. 27. cyclic movement of nitrogen in different chemical forms from the environment to organisms and then back to the environment.
  15. 29. complex network of interconnected food chains.