Across
- 4. Water that sinks into the soil and is stored in slowly flowing and slowly renewed underground reservoirs called aquifers
- 8. A thin spherical envelope of gases surrounding the earth’s surface
- 9. Populations of different species living in a particular place, and potentially interacting with each other
- 10. The science that focuses on how organisms interact with one another and with their nonliving environment of matter and energy
- 14. of Energy Diagram representing the flow of energy through each trophic level in a food chain/web.
- 17. Form of cellular respiration in which some decomposers get the energy they need through the breakdown of glucose in the absence of oxygen
- 20. Organism that feeds on some or all parts of plants
- 21. Consumer organism that feeds on parts of dead organisms, cast-off fragments, and wastes of living organisms.
- 22. Made up of all of the water on or near the earth’s surface.
- 23. A group of individuals of a same species living in a particular place
- 24. Porous, water-saturated layers of sand, gravel, or bedrock that can yield an economically significant amount of water
- 25. Cyclic movement of phosphorus in different chemical forms from the environment to organisms and back to the environment
- 29. Cyclic movement of sulfur in different chemical forms from the environment to organisms and back to the environment
- 30. Consumers that, in the process of obtaining their own nutrients, release nutrients from the wastes or remains of plants/animals and then return those nutrients to the soil, water, and air to reuse by producers
- 32. A step in the nitrogen cycle. Specialized bacteria in soil combine gaseous N2 with hydrogen to make ammonia
- 33. Specialized bacteria in the waterlogged soil and in the bottom sediments of lakes, oceans, swamps, and bogs convert NH3 and NH4+ back into nitrate ions, and then into nitrogen gas (N2)
- 35. Parts of the earth’s air, water, and soil where life is found
- 37. Process that uses oxygen to convert glucose (or other organic nutrient molecules) back into carbon dioxide and water
- 39. Natural effect that releases heat in the atmosphere near the earth’s surface.
- 40. Rate at which an ecosystem’s producers capture and store a given amount of chemical energy as biomass in a given length of time
- 43. Organism that cannot produce the nutrients they need through photosynthesis and other processes. Instead, they get their nutrients by feeding on other organisms and their remains.
- 44. Second layer of the atmosphere, extending about 17-48 kilometers above the earth’s surface.
- 46. Consists of the earth’s intensely hot core, a thick mantle composed mostly of rock, and a thin outer crust.
Down
- 1. (occurs to unused ammonia) Specialized soil bacteria convert most of the NH3 and NH4+ in the soil into nitrate ions (NH3-)
- 2. A community of different species interacting with one another and with their nonliving environment of matter and energy
- 3. Innermost layer of the atmosphere
- 5. Animal that can use both plants and other animals as food sources
- 6. Biogeochemical cycle that collects, purifies, and distributes the earth’s fixed supply of water from the environment to living organisms and then back to the environment
- 7. Cyclic movement of carbon in different chemical forms from the environment to organisms and then back to the environment
- 11. 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 aerobic respiration
- 12. Organism that uses solar energy or chemical energy to manufacture the organic compounds it needs as nutrients from simple inorganic compounds obtained from its environment
- 13. The total dry weight of all living organisms that can be supported at each trophic level in a food chain or web
- 15. Animals that feed on animal-eating animals
- 16. The elements and compounds that make up nutrients move continually through air, water, soil, rock, and living organisms within ecosystems— as well as in biospheres through these cycles
- 18. Nonliving components of an ecosystem
- 19. Complex process that takes place in the cells of green plants (sun + water + CO2 = oxygen)
- 26. Organism that feeds solely on primary consumers
- 27. Freshwater from precipitation and melting ice that flows on the earth’s surface into nearby streams, lakes, wetlands, and reservoirs
- 28. Animal that feeds on other animals
- 31. The amount of energy that moves through a food chain
- 34. Cyclic movement of nitrogen in different chemical forms from the environment to organisms and the back to the environment
- 36. An individual living being
- 38. Series of organisms in which each eats or decomposes the preceding one
- 41. Complex network of many interconnected food chains and feeding relationships
- 42. A level in an ecosystem that holds organisms of the same function in the food chain and that have the same nutritional relationship to the primary sources of energy
- 45. Living components of an ecosystem