Exam 21: Decomposition and Nutrient Cycling

________ is the process by which plants absorb a portion of their nutrients from senescing tissues to be stored and used for the production of new tissues.

In oceans,how does the vertical movement of cold water affect surface organisms?

Which of the following is the slowest to decompose?

During the process of decomposition,carbon quality typically declines.

The physical fragmentation of organic matter into smaller pieces is achieved primarily by invertebrate detritivores.

The release of organically bound nutrients into an inorganic form is called ________.

Most of the nutrients in the leaves of a deciduous plant are lost from the plant when the leaves senesce and drop to the ground.

All heterotrophs to some degree function as decomposers.

What is the Haber-Bosch process?

What happens to most of the nitrogen in a leaf every autumn?

Which of the following processes act to "tighten" the nutrient spiraling in streams?

In open-water ecosystems,decomposition occurs primarily in the

Bacteria and fungi have higher C/N ratios than most of the plant litter they consume.

In which season does lake stratification occur?

What is swidden agriculture?

Given that mass loss is expressed as a negative exponential function (original mass remaining = e-kt),how much mass would be left after 20 weeks given a decomposition coefficient k = 0.0167 in units of proportion mass loss per week?

In open water,the undissolved remains of dead organisms and other organic material that drifts toward the bottom is called ________ organic matter.

Aquatic arthropods that fragment organic particles and also eat bacteria and fungi on the surface of the litter are called

As decomposition proceeds,which molecule is lost to the atmosphere?

The C/N ratio of litter is important because litter with a